23. Smallest book - the size of
the . at the end of this
sentence.
Largest book - 5 x 7 feet
National Book
Festival
Editor's Notes
Fascinating information fills the Library of Congress’s official website: www.loc.gov
The Library of Congress (LC) is the nation’s oldest federal cultural institution and is also the largest library in the world, with more than 120 million items.
Official research library of Congress
The Library of Congress is directed by the Librarian of Congress, Dr. James Billington, who is appointed by the president of the United States and confirmed by a vote of the Senate.
Billington was sworn in as the Librarian of Congress on September 14, 1987.
He is the 13th person to hold the position since the library was established in 1800.
There are nineteen specialized reading rooms at the LC, but it is the Main Reading Room, with millions of items for reference, where anyone over the age of 16 can obtain a reading card and visit.
Over 1 million items are circulated in the library each year and 12,000 new items are added each day to the overall collection.
Contains 838 miles of actual bookshelves.
The LC may not have a copy of every book ever published, but if the item is culturally significant or useful for research, the LC probably does have it.
Even in this time of rapidly expanding digital collections of books, images and recordings, the experience of physically visiting the LC is unmatched by anything online
LC is the home of the US Copyright Office
‘The American Memory collection, the Congressional database, and information from the US Copyright office are widely used in K12 education.
The American Memory Collection offers more than 600,000 free documents, maps, images and recordings online that illuminate the history and people of our country.
The mission of the James Madison Council is to bring the world’s largest and most inclusive collection of human knowledge and creativity, the Library of Congress, to people all over the United States and the world.
The council is a private-sector advisory council consisting of visionary people such as John Kluge, who donated $60 million to create a scholarly center in the library in 2000, the library’s bicentennial year of existence.
Dr. Billington has led the National Digital Library program, which includes the captivating American Memory Collection.
600,000 volumes in non-Roman script languages of Africa and the Middle East
Largest collection of japanese, Chinese, and Korean materials outside of Asia
Dr. Billington has championed the Library of Congress’s National Digital Library program- which makes freely available online millions ofAmerican historical and cultural documents on the library’s website www.loc.gov
The World Digital Library (WDL) makes available on the Internet, free of charge and in multilingual format, significant primary materials from countries and cultures around the world.
In the LC, one-half of the library’s collection is in languages other than English
The LC has offices in New Delhi, Rio de Janeiro, Cairo, Islamabad and Nairobi
Storycorps project - oral histories of ordinary citizens
Cartography collection - includes a 1507 World Map - considered the birth certificate of our nation, because it is the first document on which the work “America” appears
Largest collection of American and foreign films, TV shows, and sound recrodings
6.7 million pieces of sheet music
89,000 War veteran reminisces
Storycorps project - oral histories of ordinary citizens
World’s largest collection of comic books - including the first comic book - 1936 version of “Popular Comics”
Newspapers
100 extremely rare children’s books - a Children’s Bible from 1763
14.4 million visual images - 1.4 million available in the Photography online catalog
Classic books online, author webcasts -
Such as Stephen King talking about writing,
You can look up current legislative activities - as well as the most viewed bills. There are nine videos that explain common legislative stages. The process by which a bill becomes law is rarely predictable.
Smallest book “Old King Cole” 1/25” x 1/25”. The size of the period of the end of a sentence.
Largest book 5 x 7 foot book featuring color images of Bhutan - created by MIT students.
15th century Gutenberg Bible - one of three perfect copies in the world.
