The Library of Congress

The Library of Congress at Washington, District of Columbia, is probably the world’s largest library. It was founded in 1800 for the use of both houses of Congress, the President and the vice-president.

In 1824 during the war with Great Britain* the enemy soldiers marched into Washington, set fire to the Capitol* and destroyed the Library of Congress. After the end of hostilities, the Congress* set about replacing the collections on a far grander scale than the original one. In 1815 Jefferson’s private library was bought and it was a foundation of a new LC. In 1840 it started a wide exchange program with many libraries both at home and abroad. In 1871 the copyright act of 1846 was broadened to require the deposit of a copy of any printed matter in LC and soon it became the largest library in the country. In 1897 LC moved to its present place.

The LC, the world’s largest building occupies two city squares facing the Capitol Grounds. The main reading hall accommodates 1000 readers at a time, and is free to anyone over 16 years of age. Special facilities for serious research include 50 individual study rooms and a lot of special desks and tables.

Through the years every attempt was made to make this library pre-eminent in America. The cataloguers built up a new classification scheme. They tried to organize a system of interlibrary loans by which the collections of many libraries could be mutually shared. Now interlibrary loans are sent far and wide through the United States and abroad. Such a system is indeed established to support scholarship throughout the nation.

In 1940 the library’s work was organized around 6 departments with 32 divisions. With minor modifications this structure exists today. The character of collections was defined by the fact that they were available for the use of three categories of users: members of the Congress* and senators*; officers of the Federal Government, including the Supreme Court*; the general public.

The Library of Congress in Washington is certainly the largest library in the world. Its collections are incredibly diverse: books, manuscripts, photographs, rolls of microfilm, magnetic tapes, sheets of music and every other form of preserved thought.

The collections include the library of Thomas Jefferson (6760 volumes), the collection of American history, the Smithsonian Institution’s unequalled collection of the proceedings of learned societies of the world, the collection of Russian books, probably the largest outside Russia. A complete library of Russian history and culture (80000 volumes) was bought in Siberia, as well as many thousands of books in Japanese and other oriental languages.

Manuscripts are among LC’s greatest treasures. The chief are the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution of the United States, the personal papers of George Washington.

“Revolutionary archives” were transferred to LC and a law was passed that authorized all federal departments to transfer to LC all duplicate material and records of all federal programs. Photographic reproduction of manuscript material for American history in foreign archives and libraries has added more than 2000000 pages to the resources which students can use in Washington without going to Europe.

The Library is rich in musical events. An auditorium in 500 seats provides free concerts and lectures.

The Library of Congress has more than 64 million of items in over 125 languages. To provide access to this material, a number of catalogues have been created on cards, in book-form, in microfilm and in machine-readable form.

The information explosion of the last 25 years has left libraries no choice but to deal with the storage and accessing of information by means of new, more efficient methods.

The computerization of the Card Catalogue is only the most visible aspect of multimillion dollar revolution. In the basement of the library’s building there is a “jukebox”* on which the equivalents of 1, 5 million pages of print are stored. The “jukebox” is the face of the bibliographical future.

Near the year 2000 the Library of Congress will become a single enormous information centre to which citizens will dial long distance to read information they want by means of video screen of a pocket calculator size. The library officials emphasize that every letter of every book will be as the author wrote it.

As the largest and fastest growing library in the world, LC can be the leader in the revolutionary library life.

Comments:

· the Capitol – building at which US Congress meets at Washington D.C.

· war with Great Britain (1812-1814) – in 1812 the USA declared war on Great Britain for impassing US seamen, blockading and violating neutrality. In 1814 the British captured and burned Washington but failed in New York.

· Congress – legislature of the US, consisting of the Senate and the House of Representatives.

· members of Congress – of the lower branch – the House of Representatives.

· senator – member of the upper branch – the Senate.

· Supreme Court – the highest Federal Court consisting of 9 judges.

· jukebox -a music machine, found in places of entertainment, which plays records when a coin is put into it. In the text this word is used in a figurative sense.

I. Answer the questions.

1. Who can become a reader of the Library of Congress?

2. What kind of materials are available at this library?

3. What documents are among LC’s greatest treasures?

4. In what way has LC managed to build up a rich collection of manuscript materials referring to American history.

5. Why does the Library of Congress have this name?

6. What is LC’s general structure at present?

7. What is the general character of LC’s collections defined by?

8. How is the access provided to all materials available in LC?

9. Why is it becoming increasingly necessary to preserve information in a non-book form?

10.What future is expected for LC?

II. Discussion point: “The Role of Our University Library.”

Read and translate Text II:

L. – Librarian; I. – Ivanov.

L.: – Do you wish to reregister?

I.: – No. I am quite new around here. I’d like to become a subscriber to your library.

L.: – Very well. You just have to fill up this reader’s card.

I.: – Here you are.

L.: – One moment, please. I’ll make out your reader’s ticket. (Writes) There... The lending department is in the next room.

I.: – Thank you, but I’d like to have a look at the accessions and some magazines, first.

L.: – Well – that’s those two rooms to the left...

I.: – (to the librarian of the periodical reading room) Could I please have the “Business World” for the last two weeks?

L.: – Certainly. Here you are.

I.: – Thank you.

I.: – (in the lending department) I need a number of works on Russian Literature... Have you got those? (Shows the librarian a list of books).

L.: – (Underlining one of the titles) This, I’m sorry to say, is out at present. As to the rest, I think we have them all. But I’m not sure we’ve got the right editions... You’d better check up the imprint for each of these books in the catalogue.

I.: – Right.

I.: – (Returning) Well. I’ve checked up. You have them all except this one.

L.: – Strange... I’m sure we ought to have that too. I’ll look in the general catalogue later. Now please fill up these request slips. (Bringing the books.) Well, here are your books. Sign here, please...

I.: – Tell me please, what the terms for borrowers in your library are.

L.: – You may borrow not more than five books at a time and keep them for two weeks. If you wish to keep them longer you have to renew them by phone. Our phone number is...

I.: – Thank you very much. Good-bye.

III. Stage the dialogue. Go to the local library, register in and get the complete information about the rules of using it.

Read and translate Text III.