Library of Congress: Cultural Heritage of Humanity

2024 Author: Henry Conors | [email protected]. Last modified: 2024-02-12 02:41

From the moment the Internet entered our lives and became firmly established in it, libraries around the world 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 statement can be disputed, given 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 are really impossible to find on the Internet. As well as touching ancient manuscripts or leafing through the yellowed filings of newspapers of the century before last. And that's just for the casual reader! So large libraries with extensive collections are still popular. For scientists, writers, politicians and many others, they are simply irreplaceable. One such important repository of the world's knowledge is the US Library of 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. Healso allocated 5,000 dollars to purchase books for the needs of Congress and create a special room for their storage. The library is located in the Capitol. Only the President, Vice President, and members of the Senate and Congress of the United States could use it. That's why it got its name "Library of Congress".

The next head of state, Thomas Jefferson, who was an avid bibliophile, also paid special attention to it. He assigned an important role to the library and actively replenished its fund. During the war between England and America in 1812-1814, Washington was badly damaged by fire, the Capitol was burned to the ground. James Madison, who was then president, restored the library and bought about six and a half thousand books from Jefferson's personal archive. The Library of Congress survived another fire in 1851, losing more than half of its collection in the process. In the 50s of the XIX century, access was opened for ministers, members of the Supreme Court, recognized scientists, writers, journalists. An important decree was passed in 1870 by the then head of the library, Ainsworth Rand Spofford, that one copy of every public publication published in the United States should be deposited with the BC. A convenient book classification system was developed by the next leader, Herbert Putnam. The personal library in the form of 81 thousand books and magazines (mainly on Russian history) of the Russian merchant-bibliophile Yudin Gennady Vasilievich was bought in 1907 and transferred to the fund. The place where the largest collection of books in Russian is located outsideRussia is the Library of Congress. The National Library received its status in the 30s of the last century.

Heritage of all mankind

The very first BC fund consisted of only 740 books and three geographical maps. Over the years, despite the fires, the fund has grown enormously, and today the US Library of Congress is the largest in the world. Today it stores more than 150 million different materials. If you measure the length of the bookshelves, you get more than 1000 km. The Library of Congress has publications in 470 languages. There are over thirty million books, over 60 million manuscripts, over a million newspapers from the last 300 years, about five million maps and over a million US government publications, and the library's 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

Today, anyone over the age of 16 can access the Library of Congress. True, not all information is freely available, some is classified. You can work with assets only in reading rooms, there are 20 of them in total, there are 1460 reading places. About 3.5 thousand employees work there. At the moment, work on the digitization of the library fund is not actively carried out, so far it has been completed by only 10%. According to preliminary data, the entire volume of digital betting shops will be about 20 TB.

Appearance

Now the Library of Congress (photo attached) is housed in three buildings located on Capitol Hill, connected by underground passages and depositories. The oldest and most important building, bearing the name of Thomas Jefferson, was built in the 1890s as a prominent example of Gilded Age architecture. In 1939, the John Adams Building appeared behind the main building. Its distinguishing feature is the bronze doors with depictions of gods from various world mythologies. 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. This part of the BC houses the Mary Pickford Theatre, which regularly shows films and television films from the library's collections free of charge. The Packard Campus is the name of the visual and audio storage center, opened in 2007 and is the newest building located in Culpeper, Virginia. The building was reconstructed from a former bunker, and its name comes from the name of David Woodley Packard, head of the Humanities Institute, who designed the campus. One of the important details of the complex is the art deco cinema.

Copyright Office

The Library of Congress is unique in that it has been registering copyright for 130 years. It is the only national depository library in the world, which is of great importance, as it generates income and contributes to the replenishment of funds foraccount of the most interesting new editions. The Copyright Office not only registers works by American authors, citizens of other countries can also use these services. You can register absolutely any work, such as literary, musical, theatrical works, drawings, maps, promotional materials, computer games and programs, and much more. You can use the services of the Bureau via the Internet by filling out an application in electronic form and depositing the required amount to the account.