The Library of Congress

• Main Author: Goodrum, Charles A
• Format: Book
• Published: New York Praeger 1975
• Series: Praeger library of U.S. Government departments and agencies
• Subjects: Classification, Library of Congress
• Online Access: Click Here to View Status and Holdings.

 When, in 1800, Congress purchased the first volumes for the Library of Congress, no one expected its modest acquisition to grow into a treasure-trove of 76 million objects! Less than one quarter of the collection is bound volumes. The Library also has almost every phonograph record made in the United States, the largest collection of motion pictures in America, more maps, globes, and charts, more Civil War photographs, more Stradivari violins, more handwritten copies of the Gettysburg Address than any other institutution in the world. It has rare books and illuminated manuscripts, photographs, letters from great authors -- objects that make up our national memory. Indeed, the Library of Congress is the world's greatest multi-media encyclopedia.