The Library of Congress Becomes a World Library, 1815-2005

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.