Thomas
Jefferson's Library![stars](images/star-smlr.gif)
Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826), who had one of the finest libraries in
America, intended that his collection should benefit the nation. All
through his years of public service--as minister to France, as vice president,
and as president--he used every opportunity to add to his collection
of documents about America and its past, as well as volumes in many languages
about philosophy and history, science and technology, agriculture and
horticulture, architecture and painting, poetry and rhetoric. He shared
the vision of the nation's Founders that liberty and learning are inseparable
and that a free democratic people must have free access to information
in order to carry out their civic responsibilities.
After the War of 1812, during which the British burned the Capitol
and with it all the volumes of the Library of Congress, Jefferson offered
his own collection to Congress, which they purchased in 1815. The former
president, then living in retirement in Monticello, was paid $23,950
for nearly 6,500 books, almost twice the number lost in the fire. Thus,
the Library of Congress has grown from the seed of Jefferson's own library,
universal in subject matter and format, into a library that serves as
Congress's working research collection, as the nation's library, and
as a symbol of the central role that free access to information plays
in our knowledge-based democracy.
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July 5, 2005
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