Happy Anniversary to LC’s Thomas Jefferson Building

From the LC Blog:

The Politico reported that yesterday (Nov. 1) was the 110th anniversary of the opening of the Library of Congress’s Thomas Jefferson Building on Capitol Hill (although the “TJB” moniker wouldn’t come until many decades later).

On this day in 1897, the Library of Congress building on First Street and Independence Avenue Northwest opened its doors to the public. Previously, the library had been housed in the Congressional Reading Room in the U.S. Capitol.

In 1871, after the library had outgrown its cramped quarters, Ainsworth Spofford (1825-1908), the librarian of Congress, proposed housing the library in a separate building. During Spofford’s tenure, the collection expanded from some 60,000 items to more than 1 million.

Source: LC Blog

This entry was posted on Saturday, November 3rd, 2007 and is filed under Government Documents and Political Information, History, Libraries and Librarianship, Source File. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.