The Library of Congress has nearly 200 million items in hundreds of languages. Over 7 million of these rare items are now available online for users worldwide.

The National Digital Library Program is digitizing historical Americana materials from the Library's holdings into online collections. There are currently more than 100 collections in the American Memory Historical Collections. These multimedia collections of photographs, manuscripts, rare books, maps, recorded sound, and moving pictures are grouped according to themes.

How do you know what is available?

There are many ways to search the collections, though finding exactly what you are looking for may take some digging and persistence. Get started with searching:

American Memory Search You can also go directly to the American Memory Collection Finder page, where the collections are grouped in a variety of categories.	The Library of Congress Site Search The main page of the Library of Congress has a search box (in the top right corner) that searches the entire Web site, excluding the online catalog of books.
Pathfinders for Browsing Pathfinders on the Learning Page are a good starting point for learning more about how the collections are organized.	The Learning Page Site Search The main page of the Learning Page has a search box in the top right corner that searches the Web site for content of specific interest to educators.
Search Tools For more advanced instructions on searching the American Memory collections, including suggested lists of synonyms, try these links. Finding Items in American Memory Synonym List Search Tips for American Memory Searching Full Text in American Memory What American Memory Resources are Included in this Search?