Today the Library of Congress is the research library of the United States Congress. It is considered to be the national library of the United States and is the oldest federal cultural institution in the United States. It is located in four buildings in Washington, D.C. as well as the Packard Campus in Culpeper, Virginia and is the largest library in the world by shelf space and number of books.
Books were ordered from London. The first collection consisted of 740 books and 3 maps and it was housed in the new Capitol. The collection covered a variety of topics but the bulk of the materials were legal in nature.
Thomas Jefferson played an important role in the Library's early history. On January 26, 1802, he signed the first law establishing the structure of the Library of Congress. The law established the presidentially appointed post of Librarian of Congress and a Joint Committee on the Library to regulate and oversee the Library, as well as giving the president and vice president the ability to borrow books.
The Library of Congress was destroyed in August 1814, when invading British troops set fire to the Capitol building and the small library of 3,000 volumes within. Within a month, now a former President, Jefferson offered his personal library as a replacement. Jefferson had spent 50 years accumulating a wide variety of books, including ones in foreign languages and volumes of philosophy, science, literature, and other topics not normally viewed as part of a legislative library, such as cookbooks, writing that, "I do not know that it contains any branch of science which Congress would wish to exclude from their collection; there is, in fact, no subject to which a Member of Congress may not have occasion to refer." In January 1815, Congress accepted Jefferson's offer, appropriating $23,950 for his 6,487 books.
The Library of Congress was housed in the United States Capitol for most of the 19th century. It grew in size rapidly after the Civil War. During the rapid expansion of the 20th century the Library of Congress assumed a preeminent public role, becoming a "library of last resort" and expanding its mission for the benefit of scholars and the American people.
Today the Library's primary mission is researching inquiries made by members of Congress through the Congressional Research Service. Although it is open to the public, only Library employees, Members of Congress, Supreme Court justices and other high-ranking government officials may check out books.