|
Containing approximately 130
million items in virtually all formats, languages, and subjects,
these
collections are the single most comprehensive accumulation of
human expression ever assembled. True to the Jeffersonian ideal,
the collections are broad in scope, including research materials
in more than 460 languages, more than 35 scripts, and many media.
All researchers must have a Library-issued
Reader Identification Card to use any of the Library's public
collections. All collections are stored in areas that are off-limits
to the public and to staff without authorization. This "closed
stack policy," like the reader identification program, ensures
the security of the Library's collections. Researchers new to
the Library are encouraged to take the "Research
Orientation to the Library of Congress" course offered
by the Humanities and Social Sciences Division. This 90-minute
class, offered throughout the year, is a basic introduction for
researchers using any of the Library of Congress collections and
resources.
The collections are constantly
growing. Materials come to the Library through an acquisitions
program that extends throughout the world and includes over fifteen
thousand agreements with foreign governments and research institutions
for the exchange of research materials; gifts; purchases; transfers
from other U.S. government agencies; and copyright deposits. Each
day about twenty-two thousand items arrive at the Library. Approximately
ten thousand of these items will become part of the permanent
collections, selected in accordance with the Library
of Congress Collections Policy Statements which provide a
plan for developing the collections and maintaining their existing
strengths.
The Library's collection building
activities cover virtually every discipline and field of study
and include the entire range of different forms of publication
and media for recording and storing knowledge. The Library has
always striven to develop richly representative collections in
all fields, except technical agriculture and clinical medicine,
which are the collection responsibilities of the National Agricultural
Library and the National Library of Medicine, respectively.
For nearly two centuries, the Library
of Congress has relied first on its own expert staff, as well
as on copyright depositors, bookdealers, scholars, and other experts
to assure that the national collections of the United States continue
to enable the Library of Congress to fulfill its mission to "sustain
and preserve a universal collection of knowledge and creativity
for future generations."
|