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Library of Congress

Washington, District of Columbia, United States

The U.S. Library of Congress

One of the mosaic's in the Library of Congress

The Library of Congress is the largest library in the world, in terms of number of items, and shelf space. It is also responsible for overseeing copyrighted works. It is located in a number of buildings, but the main building is located just east of the US Capitol Building in Washington, DC.

The library itself is quite a nice building. If you are in the area, it is definitely worth visiting. It has a lot of nice marble, mosaics, and artwork. The library also houses some interesting items such as a bible originally printed by Gutenberg. There is also an exhibit hall. When we visited, it contained a number of old documents maintained by the library (including the items that were in Lincoln's pockets when he was killed).

The Library of Congress also offers free tours at various times throughout the day. The tour takes visitors to a number of different areas in the library, and talks about some of the library's history. Our tour guide focused heavily on some of the art in the library. Our tour lasted about 75-90 minutes, but I think it was unusual for the tours to last that long. We found the tour to be too drawn out and boring.

Cost

Entrance to the Library of Congress and tours are free. However, you won't be able to go into the main library area without a library card (and for that, you must be a student with a valid need to use the library for research).

Estimated Visiting Time

Expect to spend approximately 30 minutes in the Library of Congress just to look around. If you take a tour or want to spend any time looking at the exhibits area, you will want to allow more time.