​Your book can be in the world's largest library


The Library of Congress ("LOC" or "LC") is the oldest federal cultural institution in the United States and serves as the research arm of Congress.



It is also the largest library in the world, with more than 33 million books and other print materials, 3 million recordings, 12.5 million photographs, 5.3 million maps, 6 million pieces of sheet music and 63 million manuscripts. The Library's mission is to make resources available and useful to Congress and the American people and to sustain and preserve a universal collection of knowledge and creativity for future generations.



If you pay $35 to copyright your book, a copy of it may reside forever in the Library of Congress. Your parents should be proud of you. Actually, your book will be there until it rots or until a future librarian decides to clear it out to make space for something newer or more important.



The LOC was founded in 1800. In 1814, British troops burned the Capitol building (where the Library was then housed) and destroyed about 3,000 books.



The LOC has about 145 million items on approximately 750 miles of shelves.



Each workday, the LOC receives about 22,000 items and adds approximately 10,000 items to its collections. The majority of the items are received through the copyright registration process, because the LOC is home to the U.S. Copyright Office.



The LOC has materials in nearly 500 languages, and approximately half of the Library's book and serial collections are in languages other than English.

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The LOC contains the world's largest law library, with over 2.5 million volumes.