5 Must-Read Facts about the Library of Congress.

INTRODUCTION

The library of Congress was first established in the year 1800 and is one of the oldest and the largest library around the world. This library serves the purpose of research for the United States Congress. It’s located in Washington D.C and has been provided invaluable resources to the longest time. Here are 5 facts about the library of Congress:

1.   Oldest Cultural Institution

The most interesting fact about the library of congress is that it’s one of the oldest libraries. It was established in 1800 by the same bill that situated the capital from Philadelphia to Washington D.C. The library contains all the books that might come in handy for the members of Congress and its usage is only limited to the members of Congress. Although, people living in the United States can read books through the online forum of the library or read them through a local library.

2.   Public Tweets Archive

Another an amazing fact worth knowing about the library of congress is that it receives every tweet by the public. Twitter decided to donate its entire public tweet that’s included in its archive to the library in the year 2010. That meant that Twitter decided to donate several hundred million tweets every day. Twitter archive plays a huge role in providing information regarding language and societal trends. The archive is still nit completed and the library of congress is still figuring out a way to organize all the information that’s in the archive. Since the past seven years, the tweets have been stored out of sight. With the new librarian, Carla Hayden who’s known for taking a digital approach, this might change the next step.

3.   Tragedies

After the library was founded, the library caught fire after a few years by the British troops in the war of 1812. All of the books and resources were destroyed in the Capitol Building. Almost 3000 books that were on the topics of the law were destroyed in the fire. Thomas Jefferson who owned a personal library and it contained around 6000 volumes which made it the largest library in the country at that time agreed to donate all of his books to the congress library for around $24000 in 1815. His personal library had volumes on art, science, and philosophy which expanded the scope of the library. The extending of the scope of the library and the increased diversity in the subjects gave rise to many criticisms but Thomas Jefferson’s simply replied by saying that there might be occasions when any member of the Congress might need to refer to such books. In the year 1851, the library met another fire which burnt two-thirds of Thomas Jefferson’s books.

4.   Largest Library of the World

The library of Congress does not only include documents of American entity but it included materials and resources from all around the world. The resources include three million Asia and ten million items from Iberia, Latin America, and the Caribbean. The books present in the library are not only written in English but also other languages. It contains approximately books based on 460 languages. Their major goal is to have at least one essential resource or item form each nation. The library of Congress also has its offices around the world such as India, Pakistan, Indonesia, Kenya, and Brazil. It has almost 164 million books and resources making it the world largest library. Not only does it have 38 million books and other printed resources but also acquires photographs and films. It also has a newspaper, comics, phonebooks, maps, etc.

5.   The Current Librarian

Presidents do not actually consider nominating actual librarians for the library of Congress. They choose scholars, historians or some other academic for the head. There have been 14 Librarians of Congress from which only 3 have been actual librarians in the past. The current head, Carla Hayden is one of them and she’s also the first African-American woman to head the world largest library. 

CONCLUSION

In short the five must read facts mentioned above tells us that the library of congress is the largest and oldest cultural library around the world.

AUTHOR’S BIO

A successful and well-known blogger, Kevin, is a writer who is passionate about political and historical places. He also likes to assist students in essay writers on topics based on history, politics and world view.