The Library of Congress LOC

Congress created its library on April 24, 1800, in the same act that moved the capital to Washington, with 5,000 dollars for books for the use of Congress. British troops burned the Capitol and its 3,000 volumes in August 1814. Thomas Jefferson, retired at Monticello, sold Congress his personal library of 6,487 books in 1815, and its breadth, covering philosophy, science, and literature as well as law, set the Library on its course as a universal collection. The 1870 law requiring copyright applicants to deposit two copies of their work with the Library made it the national repository of American publishing.

The Library holds more than 178 million items, including books, manuscripts, maps, photographs, recordings, and films, on about 840 miles of shelves in three buildings on Capitol Hill and storage facilities elsewhere. The Jefferson Building, opened in 1897, is among the most ornate public buildings in the country. The Library serves Congress first, through the Law Library and the Congressional Research Service, then the public and scholars through its reading rooms and digitized collections. The U.S. Copyright Office, part of the Library, registers copyrights and advises Congress on copyright law.

The Librarian of Congress is appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate. Until 2015 the post carried no term limit, and only fourteen people held it in two centuries, some for decades. Congress then set a ten-year term. The Library has about 3,000 employees and also runs the National Library Service for the Blind and Print Disabled, the National Film Registry, and the National Recording Registry, and it administers the selection of the Poet Laureate.

The Library's position in the legislative branch was tested in May 2025, when the President dismissed Carla Hayden, the first woman and first Black American to serve as Librarian, and the Register of Copyrights, and named the Deputy Attorney General as acting Librarian. Library staff and members of Congress disputed whether an executive branch official could lead a legislative branch agency, and the Register challenged her removal in court. The episode reopened an old question about whether the Library, and the Copyright Office in particular, belongs to Congress or to the President.