The Library of Congress occupies three buildings on Capitol Hill. The Thomas Jefferson Building (1897) is the original separate Library of Congress building. (The Library began in 1800 inside the U.S. Capitol.) The John Adams Building was built in 1938 and the James Madison Memorial Building was completed in 1981.

An agency of the legislative branch of the U.S. government, the Library includes several internal divisions (or service units), including the Office of the Librarian, Congressional Research Service, U.S. Copyright Office, Law Library of Congress, Library Services, the Office of Strategic Initiatives and the Office of Support Operations. You can also download a PDF of the Library's organizational chart. Adobe Acrobat Reader is required to view this document.

The Library of Congress
101 Independence Ave, SE
Washington, DC 20540

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Collections

Today's Library of Congress is an unparalleled world resource. The collection of more than 151 million items includes more than 34.5 million cataloged books and other print materials in 470 languages; more than 66.6 million manuscripts; the largest rare book collection in North America; and the world's largest collection of legal materials, films, maps, sheet music and sound recordings.

More about the Library's Collections

Year 2012 at a Glance

In Fiscal Year 2012 (October 2011 to September 2012), the Library of Congress ...

Responded to more than 700,000 congressional reference requests and delivered to Congress more than 1 million research products and approximately 30,000 volumes from the Library's collections

Registered 511,539 claims to copyright

Provided reference services to 540,489 individuals in-person, by telephone, and through written and electronic correspondence

Circulated more than 25 million copies of Braille and recorded books and magazines to more than 800,000 blind and physically handicapped reader accounts

Circulated more than 1 million items for use within the Library

Preserved 6 million items from the Library's collections

Recorded a total of 155,357,302 items in the collections, including:

• 23,276,091 cataloged books in the Library of Congress classification system
• 12,638,773 books in large type and raised characters, incunabula (books printed before 1501), monographs and serials, bound newspapers, pamphlets, technical reports, and other printed material
• 119,442,438 items in the nonclassified (special) collections. These included:
  
  • 3,420,599 audio materials, such as discs, tapes, talking books, and other recorded formats
  • 68,118,899 manuscripts
  • 5,478,123 maps
  • 16,746,497 microforms
  • 6,589,199 pieces of sheet music
  • 15,704,268 visual materials, including:
    • 1,354,126 moving images
    • 13,640,325 photographs
    • 104,270 posters
    • 605,547 prints and drawings

Welcomed nearly 1.7 million onsite visitors and recorded more than 87 million visits and 545 million page views on the Library's website. At year's end, the Library's online primary-source files totaled 37.6 million

Employed 3,312 permanent staff members

Operated with a total fiscal 2011 appropriation of $629.2 million, including the authority to spend $41.9 million in receipts