Library of the US Congress: the cultural heritage of mankind

Since the time when the Internet has entered our life and firmly consolidated in it, libraries around the world have experienced a clear outflow of readers. After all, why go to the library, if the world wide web has access to almost any information. However, this claim can be challenged if one considers that a huge number of diverse literary works, scientific treatises and a host of other materials have not yet been digitized. Many rare important things can not really be found on the Internet. As well as touching ancient manuscripts or leaf through the yellowed filings of newspapers of the century before last. And this is just for the simple reader! So large libraries with extensive funds are still popular. For scientists, writers, politicians and many others, they are simply irreplaceable. One of such important repositories of the world's knowledge is the library of the US Congress.

History of creation and development

It was founded by American President John Adams on April 24, 1800, when he moved the capital of the United States from Philadelphia to Washington. He also allocated 5 thousand dollars for the purchase of books for the needs of the Congress and the creation of a special room for their storage. There was a library in the Capitol. It could only be used by the president, vice president, as well as members of the US Senate and Congress. That's why it got its name "Library of Congress".

Special attention was paid to it by the next head of state, Thomas Jefferson, who was an avid bibliophile. He gave the library an important role, actively replenished its foundation. During the war between England and America in 1812-1814, Washington suffered greatly from the fire, the Capitol was burned to the ground. James Madison, who at that time was president, restored the library and bought from Jefferson about six and a half thousand books from his personal archive. The library of the American Congress survived another fire in 1851, while losing more than half of its fund. In the fifties of the XIX century, access was opened to ministers, members of the Supreme Court, recognized scientists, writers, and journalists. An important decree was adopted in 1870 by the then head of the library, Einsworth Random Spofford, that one copy of every public publication going to the United States should be transferred to the BC. A convenient system for classifying books was developed by the next leader, Herbert Patnem. A personal library in the form of 81 thousand books and magazines (mainly in Russian history) by the Russian merchant bibliophile Yudin Gennady Vasilievich in 1907 was bought out and transferred to the fund. The place where the largest collection of books is in Russian outside of Russia is the Library of Congress. The National Library received its status in the 1930s.

The heritage of all mankind

The very first BC fund consisted of only 740 books and three geographic maps. Over the years, despite fires, the fund has grown enormously, and to date the library of the US Congress is the largest in the world. Today it stores more than 150 million of all kinds of materials. If you measure the length of bookshelves, you will get more than 1000 km. The library of the Congress presents editions in 470 languages. Over thirty million books, over 60 million manuscripts, over one million newspapers over the past 300 years, about five million maps and more than a million publications of the US government, the library collection includes millions of photographs, films and sound recordings. Each year the fund is replenished by 1-3 million units.

Temple of Knowledge in Numbers

To date, access to the library of the Congress can get anyone interested in the age of 16 years. True, not all information is freely available, some are classified. With assets, you can only work in reading rooms, there are 20 of them, and 1460 readership. About 3,500 employees work there. At the moment, work on digitization of the library fund is not actively carried out, for the time being it is executed only by 10%. According to preliminary data, the total volume of the BK in digital form will be about 20 TB.

Appearance

Now the Library of Congress (photo attached) is located in three buildings that are located on the Capitol Hill, between them they connect underground transitions and depositories. The oldest and most basic building, named after Thomas Jefferson, was built in the 1890s as a bright representative of the architecture of the "gilt century". In 1939, the main building was the building of John Adams. Its distinctive feature is the bronze doors with the gods of various world mythologies depicted on them. The third building opened its doors to readers in the 70s of the last century and is a memorial to another US president - James Madison. In this part of the BC is the theater of Mary Pickford, which regularly demonstrates free of charge film and television pictures from the library's collections. The Packard Campus - the so-called visual and audio storage center, opened in 2007 and being the newest building, is located in Culpeper, Virginia. The building was reconstructed from a former bunker, and its name comes from the name of David Woodley Packard, the head of the Humanities Institute, who designed the campus. One of the important details of the complex is the cinema, made in the Art Deco style.

Copyright Office

The Library of Congress is unique in that it has been registering copyright for 130 years. This is the only national library in the world, engaged in depositing, which is of great importance, as it brings in revenue and contributes to the replenishment of funds through the most interesting new publications. The Copyright Office registers not only works of American authors, these services can be used by citizens of other countries. You can register absolutely any work, for example literary, musical, theatrical works, drawings, maps, advertising materials, computer games and programs, and much more. You can use the services of the Bureau on the Internet, filling out the application in electronic form and making the necessary amount to the account.