Built in 1800 in Washington, DC, the Library of Congress is the largest library in the world. It is largest in both shelf space and number of books. It has more than 158 million items on about 838 miles of bookshelves. This includes over 34 million books, over 3 million recordings, over 13 million photographs, over 5 million maps, over 6 million pieces of sheet music and over 66 million manuscripts! The books in the Library are in about 470 different languages. The Library receives some 15,000 items each working day and adds approximately 12,000 items to the collections daily. The majority of the collections are received through the Copyright registration process, as the Library is home to the US Copyright Office.
Where is the Largest Library Located?
