On April 24, 1800, President John Adams approved the appropriation of $5,000 to establish a U.S. Library of Congress for "such books as may be necessary for the use of Congress."

The first books for the Library of Congress were purchased from London and consisted of 740 volumes and three maps. Two years later, President Thomas Jefferson approved the first legislation to define the functions of the Library. After a fire destroyed much of the Library’s collection during the War of 1812, Jefferson sold his entire personal library of over 6,000 books to the Library for around $24,000. The Library’s original collection consisted of many topics with a majority of legal materials.

In December 1851, a fire destroyed around 35,000 books in the Library, including approximately two-thirds of the Library's collection and two-third’s of Jefferson’s original donation. However, the Library of Congress quickly recovered and grew rapidly in size and importance after the Civil War. It also began to accept all copyrighted materials.

Today, the Library of Congress serves many roles, including: (i) the Library for the legislature (i.e. Congress); (ii) a public library open to everyone; (iii) a research institution; (iv) the U.S. Copyright Office; (v) a library used by the executive and judicial branches of government; (vi) a law library; (vii) a national library for the blind and physically handicapped individuals; and many other reasons.

The Library of Congress is also the largest library of information in the world based on shelf space and number of books. The Library holds over 130 million items with over 29 million books – in comparison to the British Library which houses around 150 million items with 25 million books. The Library contains just about every kind of topic and material imaginable.

For example, the Library of Congress contains more than 32 million cataloged materials in around 470 languages, more than 61 million manuscripts, the largest rare book collection in North America (including the Declaration of Independence and a Gutenberg Bible), the world’s largest collection of legal materials, and a vast amount of government materials, newspapers, films, microfilm, maps, sound recordings, photos, architectural drawings, etc.

If that isn’t enough, the Library also houses the U.S. Copyright Office where all U.S. copyrights are registered. Around 22,000 new items arrive at the Library of Congress each day.

President John Adams likely never thought that his appropriation of $5,000 on this day April 4, 1800 for a Library of Congress would eventually turn into one of the largest universal collections of human knowledge in the world.