The Library of Congress occupies three buildings on Capitol Hill. The Thomas Jefferson Building (1897) is the original separate Library of Congress building. (The Library began in 1800 inside the U.S. Capitol.) The John Adams Building was built in 1938 and the James Madison Memorial Building was completed in 1981.

An agency of the legislative branch of the U.S. government, the Library includes several internal divisions (or service units), including the Office of the Librarian, Congressional Research Service, U.S. Copyright Office, Law Library of Congress, Library Services, the Office of Strategic Initiatives and the Office of Support Operations. You can also download a PDF of the Library's organizational chart. Adobe Acrobat Reader is required to view this document.

The Library of Congress
101 Independence Ave, SE
Washington, DC 20540

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Collections

Today's Library of Congress is an unparalleled world resource. The collection of more than 151 million items includes more than 34.5 million cataloged books and other print materials in 470 languages; more than 66.6 million manuscripts; the largest rare book collection in North America; and the world's largest collection of legal materials, films, maps, sheet music and sound recordings.

More about the Library's Collections

Year 2011 at a Glance

In Fiscal Year 2011 (October 2010 to September 2011), the Library of Congress ...

Responded to more than 763,000 congressional reference requests and delivered to Congress more than 1 million research products and approximately 30,000 volumes from the Library's collections

Registered 670,044 claims to copyright

Provided reference services to 550,590 individuals in-person, by telephone, and through written and electronic correspondence

Circulated more than 25 million disc, cassette and braille items to more than 800,000 blind and physically handicapped patrons

Circulated more than 1 million items for use within the Library

Preserved 10.7 million items from the Library's collections

Recorded a total of 151,785,778 items in the collections, including:

  • 22,765,967 cataloged books in the Library of Congress classification system
  • 11,762,851 books in large type and raised characters, incunabula (books printed before 1501), monographs and serials, bound newspapers, pamphlets, technical reports, and other printed material
  • 117,256,960 items in the nonclassified (special) collections. These included:
    • 3,379,634 audio materials, such as discs, tapes, talking books, and other recorded formats
    • 66,634,349 manuscripts
    • 5,446,673 maps
    • 16,627,084 microforms
    • 6,454,774 pieces of sheet music
    • 15,366,922 visual materials, including:
      • 1,315,024 moving images
      • 13,346,902 photographs
      • 103,845 posters
      • 601,151 prints and drawings

Welcomed nearly 1.7 million onsite visitors and recorded more than 73.4 million visits and 512 million page views on the Library's website (at year's end, the Library's online primary-source files totaled 31.4 million)

Employed 3,525 permanent staff members

Operated with a total fiscal 2011 appropriation of $671.552 million, including the authority to spend $42.876 million in receipts