Library of Congress Office
The Library of Congress maintains six overseas offices that acquire, catalog, preserve, and distribute library and research materials from their respective regions, not only for the collections of the Library of Congress, but also for primarily American academic libraries and research institutions.
The New Delhi office, the largest of these offices, acquires publications not only from India but also from Bangladesh, Bhutan, Burma, Nepal, and Sri Lanka, where it maintains sub-offices in the American Embassies. The Dhaka Office is headed by a Library of Congress Representative who, with the assistance of a library technician, selects and acquires a wide variety of publications from Bangladesh. They acquire and ship publications to New Delhi where they are cataloged and bound (or microfilmed) and shipped to the United States.
The Country Representative works to keep abreast of current scholarship and publishing, acquiring wide range of materials. A high priority is collecting official publications, including the important legal materials such as the gazette, legislative debates and laws, and judiciary rulings. Recognizing the importance of science in the region, the Library of Congress acquires a number of Bangladesh’s scientific and technical monographs, journals, technical reports, and conference proceedings. Major newspapers and news weeklies, scholarly journals, literary as well as lifestyle and other popular magazines, research monographs on the arts, the social sciences and humanities are also acquired. Increasingly, non-print and electronic media along with maps are being sought to supplement traditional book and journal formats. The Library of Congress presence in Dhaka allows the Country Representative to develop a rich collection of ephemera documenting the activities of social, political and religious organizations and advocacy groups based in the country.
To celebrate the 2000 Library of Congress Bicentennial, the New Delhi office launched The South Asian Literary Recordings Project. Over the past four years the Office has recorded more than 100 prominent authors from the region reading from their works. The Dhaka office recorded four prominent local authors and poets for the project. The recordings are available on http://www.loc.gov/acq/ovop/delhi/salrp
The cultural and bibliographic exchanges of the Library of Congress promote knowledge and understanding between countries and peoples. Since the founding of Bangladesh, the Library of Congress has had knowledgeable staff work to ensure that Congress and the American people have information in all formats about the rich culture and heritage of Bangladesh. To find out whether the Library owns a book, journal or an audio-visual material from Bangladesh, or any other country, visit the Library of Congress Online Catalog at: http://catalog.loc.gov/
Embassy of the United States of America, GSO Center
Baridhara, Dhaka-1212
PABX: 8855500-22 Ext. 2498, 2499 Fax: 9887428
Email: locdhaka@citech-bd.com