Law Library of Congress
The Law Library of Congress is the law library of the United States Congress. The Law Library of Congress holds the single most comprehensive and authoritative collection of domestic, foreign, and international legal materials in the world. Established in 1832, its collections are currently housed in the James Madison Memorial Building of the Library of Congress. Law staff rely on and utilize 2.9 million volumes of primary legal sources, 102.18 million microforms, 99,000 reels of microfilm, 3.18 million pieces of microfiche, and 15,600 tangible electronic resources (CD-ROMs and other disks),[1] making it is the largest law library in the world.[2]
Law Library of Congress
Washington, D.C., United States
National Law Library
1832
2 U.S.C. § 132
Library of Congress
2.9 million
Public access; Closed stacks
Library does not publicly circulate
Members of the United States Congress and general public
$15,797,000
91
History[edit]
Early years[edit]
The Library of Congress was established as an in-house reference library for Congress in 1800, the year the government moved from Philadelphia to the new city of Washington, D.C. Law books made up nearly 20% of the initial collection. These were for the most part publications in English and international law.
The first Library of Congress was destroyed when the British burned the Capitol Building in 1814. It was replaced by the purchase of the library of Thomas Jefferson in 1815. This brought 475 law titles, 318 of which were published in England. It included Virginia laws and court decisions, but material from other states (which Jefferson had classified as "foreign law") remained limited. Although the Library received copies of all federal laws and Supreme Court decisions, obtaining state laws and decisions of state courts remained a problem for decades.
The Supreme Court[edit]
There were repeated efforts to extend the use of what was generally called "The Congress Library" to other government officials and especially to the federal judiciary. The United States Supreme Court sat in the United States Capitol Building from 1801 to 1935. For the first decade of the nineteenth century its Justices could not formally use the Library of Congress, although they may have been able to consult the books with a letter of introduction from a Member of Congress. On March 2, 1812, a Joint Resolution of both Houses of Congresses authorized use of the Library by the justices of the Supreme Court, on whose behalf Chief Justice John Marshall (served 1801–1835) wrote a polite letter thanking Congress for the favor.
Establishment of the Law Library in 1832[edit]
The first three decades of the nineteenth century saw repeated unsuccessful attempts to establish a separate Law Library to serve both Congress and the Supreme Court. The initiative came from those members of Congress who had had distinguished legal or judicial careers. On January 20, 1832, New York Senator William L. Marcy, a sometime Associate Judge of the Supreme Court of New York, introduced a bill to "Increase and Improve the Law Department of the Library of Congress". This time, the Bill passed both Houses of Congress and was signed by President Andrew Jackson on July 14, 1832. (The Statute remains in force, now listed as 2 U.S.C. § 132, § 134, § 135, and § 137.)
The Act directed the Librarian to prepare an "apartment" for the purpose of a law library and to remove the law books from the library into the apartment. The Justices of the Supreme Court were authorized to make rules and regulations for the use of the Law Library during the sitting of the court. The Law Library, however, remained a part of the Library of Congress which was responsible for its incidental expenses.
A sum of $5,000 was appropriated "for the present year" to purchase law books, with $1,000 for each of the next five years. The books would be selected by the Chief Justice. Some 2,011 law books (693 of which had belonged to Thomas Jefferson) were transferred from the general collection, and became the nucleus of a collection that now exceeds 2 million volumes. The Law Library thus acquired its own appropriation and budget line, as well as a statutory relationship with the Supreme Court that would endure until 1935.