Today, the Library of Congress holds over 25 million cataloged books, has items in 470 languages, and is home to the papers of 23 presidents, a cuneiform tablet, and a Gutenberg Bible. The Library receives an average of around 20,000 items a day, about 10,000 of which are added to the permanent collection and occupy three buildings at its main campus in Washington, D.C. It also has storage facilities in Maryland and a conservation site in Culpepper, Virginia housed in an old Federal Reserve storage center and Cold War bunker. But the Library as an institution has lived through many different locations, starting with an initial, small collection that was created when the U.S. federal government first moved to Washington, D.C.
The Library of Congress began its story in the still-under-construction Capitol building after Congress received approval from President John Adams and passed an order on April 24, 1800, that dictated that books should be kept in “a suitable apartment” within the Congressional building. Originally intended as a reference library of sorts for Congress members and their staffs, the library had a budget of approximately $5,000 that was used to order a collection of around 700 books, plus maps, mainly from booksellers in London.
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When Thomas Jefferson was elected president, he expanded the powers and reach of the library by extending borrowing privileges to the president and vice president and giving the president the power to appoint a Librarian of Congress as well as establish a joint committee to oversee the library’s operation. Continuing the formalization of the Library of Congress as an institution, in the early 1800s, the library published its first catalog, which had entries for 3,076 volumes, and 53 maps, charts, and plans. The same year, members of Congress were exempted from paying overdue fees on library materials.
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