The US library of Congress

The famous Libraries of the World.

The US Library of Congress is the largest in the world. It has about 90 million items – books, manuscripts, maps, photographs, pieces of music etc.

The library has about 350 miles of bookshelves in three gigantic buildings in Washington. D.C.

The collection was started in 1800 to help congressmen in their work.

When in 1814 the books were destroyed in fire, the Congress bought Tomas Jefferson's personal library of about 6500books – the beginning of a new collection. Now the library is open to the public.