In late June, U.S. Copyright Office staff members spent several weeks packing materials into 5,000 color-coded orange crates for the July 1 move from Washington's Capitol Hill to Crystal City, a section of Arlington, Va. Three divisions remain on Capitol Hill.
The one-year relocation will allow the Architect of the Capitol to reconfigure the Copyright Office's space in the Library's James Madison Building to meet the needs of the new business processes and to improve workflow and security. The reconfiguration includes new voice and data systems.
Some 460 Copyright Office staff members and contractors vacated their Capitol Hill offices on June 30. When they came to work in Crystal City on Wednesday morning, July 5, their computers and phones were hooked up and their crates were waiting to be unpacked.
"Ninety-eight percent of the move went perfectly," said Copyright Office Chief Operating Officer Julia Huff, who began planning for this monumental undertaking in 2000.
Movers initially transported 16 truckloads of incoming and in-process copyright deposits to Crystal City, followed by another 138 truckloads of furniture, computers, electronic equipment, staff members' work materials and office records. According to Huff, an added benefit is the opportunity for the office to rid itself of surplus paper and furnishings accumulated during 26 years in the Madison Building.
This is not the first time that the Copyright Office has been relocated since the copyright registration and deposit system was centralized in the Library of Congress by an Act of Congress approved by President Ulysses S. Grant on July 8, 1870. Along with other Library of Congress departments, the Copyright Office operated in the U.S. Capitol Building until the Library moved to its own building (later named the Thomas Jefferson Building) in 1897. The Copyright Office remained in the Jefferson Building for more than 40 years until it moved to the John Adams Building when that newly constructed building opened in 1939. The first floor of the Adams Building, with its entrance facing Pennsylvania Avenue, was especially designed for use by the Copyright Office. Thirty years later, on March 28, 1969, trucks carried the copyright records, deposits and furniture to Crystal City, Va., in order to relieve the crowded conditions in the Library's two principal buildings in Washington. The Copyright Office remained in Virginia for more than a decade before returning to Capitol Hill in the fall of 1980 when the Library's third building on Capitol Hill—the James Madison Building—opened its doors.
Public service to Copyright Office customers will not be affected by the move. The Copyright Card Catalog, and the Licensing, Information and Reference, and Copyright Acquisitions divisions will all remain in the Madison Building, where patrons will continue to be served. All Copyright Office phone numbers and mailing addresses will remain the same.
The following offices and divisions are temporarily located in Crystal City: the Offices of the Register of Copyrights, General Counsel, Policy and International Affairs; Administrative Services; the Copyright Technology Office; and the Cataloging, Examining, and Receiving and Processing Divisions.