2005/06/01 by John Y. Cole · 2 citations
Social Sciences · #American Constitutional Law and Politics #Library of congress #Scope (computer science) #Legislature #National library #Library science #Principal (computer security) #Library history #Political science #Institution #Law #Computer science
paper · doi:10.1353/lac.2005.0046
openalex publication_date 2005/06/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/01
Established as a legislative library in 1800 to support the U.S. Congress when it moved from Philadelphia to Washington, D.C., the Library of Congress—retaining its original name and primary legislative purpose—has subsequently become the largest and most international of the world's major libraries. The principal reason is that Librarians of Congress since Ainsworth Rand Spofford (1864–97), but especially Herbert Putnam (1899–1939), Luther H. Evans (1945–53), and James H. Billington (1987–), have affirmed and expanded Thomas Jefferson's concept that the Library of Congress is a national institution that should be universal in scope and widely and freely available to everyone.