The Library of Congress is the nation's oldest federal cultural institution and serves as the research arm of Congress. It is also the largest library in the world, with more than 130 million items on approximately 530 miles of bookshelves. The collections include more than 29 million books and other printed materials, 2.7 million recordings, 12 million photographs, 4.8 million maps, and 58 million manuscripts.

The Library of Congress was founded in 1800. On August 24, 1814, the Library's core collection of 3,000 volumes was destroyed when the British burned the Capitol, where the Library was housed.

On January 30, 1815, Congress approved the purchase of Thomas Jefferson's personal library of 6,487 books for $23,950. On Christmas Eve 1851, another fire destroyed two-thirds of the collection. Many of the volumes have since been replaced, but nearly 900 are missing. As part of the Library's Bicentennial celebration in 2000, Jefferson's library -- the foundation of the Library of Congress -- was reconstructed and placed on view to the public.

The Library receives some 22,000 items each working day and adds approximately 10,000 items to the collections daily.

The majority of the collections are received through the Copyright registration process, as the Library is home to the U.S. Copyright Office.