JOMC 50/EIS Research Initiative
The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Last updated: September 7, 1997

From the Mundane to the Magnificent

The Jefferson Building of the Library of Congress

The Library of Congress

Map of Library of Congress Buildings
Street Map of Area Surrounding Library of Congress

Evolution of The Library of Congress
The founder: Thomas Jefferson Third U. S. President 1801-1809.
This drawing of the old Congressional Reading Room by W. Bengough appeared in Harper's Weekly on February 27, 1897. Librarian of Congress Ainsworth Rand Spofford is depicted at the far right, emerging from his desk area with a book for a reader. The man holding the lamp is David Hutcheson, Assistant Librarian.
A stairway in the Great Hall of the Library of Congress, Thomas Jefferson Building, which was designed to demonstrate America's love of learning, science, work, and culture. (Photograph by Reid Baker)
In 1986 work began on a massive renovation of the Thomas Jefferson Building as it approached it's one hundredth birthday in 1997. The heart of that building, the Main Reading Room, is shown before renovation. (Photograph by Marita Clance)
The North Reading Room on the fifth floor of the Adams Building holds a reference collection focused primarily on business and economics, political science, education, and sociology. Among its most prominent decorative elements are near-life-size paintings of all Chaucer's Canterbury pilgrims by artist Ezra Winter. (Photograph by Reid Baker)

Rare collections in the Library of Congress
In 1832, when the Law Library was established as a separate department of the Library of Congress, its collections included just over two thousand volumes, 639 of which had been part of Thomas Jefferson's library. The photograph shows that space occupied by the Law Library when it was located in the Capital. Now in the Madison Building, the Law Library holds over two million items, from the mundane to the magnificent -- including the Magna Carta, printed in gold letters with watercolor initials in London in 1816.
The cylinder recording of the voice of Kaiser Wilhelm II given to the Library in 1904 became the nucleus of recorded sound collections that now include more than 1.3 million recordings of music and the spoken word from 1890 to the present. These collections include formats that demonstrate the remarkable progressive steps in the history of recording -- from wax cylinders to compact disks. (Photograph by Reid Baker)
1897: The Geography and Map Division holds this map of North America. Engraved by Dutch map publisher Cornelius de Jode in 1578, it is one of the earliest maps reflecting expeditioners' reports.

The Library of Congress Subject Headings
Go to the Library of Congress Subject Headings page

This web site maintained by Eric Chernoff especially for students of the UNC's School of Journalism and Mass Communication's JOMC 50 class. For more information, please contact one of the following:

Prof. Deb Aikat
daikat@email.unc.edu Eric Chernoff, student coordinator
echernof@email.unc.edu

From the Mundane to the Magnificent

The Library of Congress

Evolution of The Library of Congress

Rare collections in the Library of Congress

The Library of Congress Subject Headings