Two blocks from the Virginia State Capitol, at 800 East Broad Street, the Library of Virginia serves as the Commonwealth's library agency. Here, two blocks from the Virginia State Capitol building, this is the archival agency and the reference library serving Virginia’s seat of government. Formally founded by the Virginia General Assembly and officially established January 23, 1823, the library organizes, cares for, and manages the state’s collection of books and official records.
Many of those records date back to the early colonial period, and the institution houses what is believed to be the most comprehensive collection of materials on Virginia history, government, and people available anywhere. The building you face carries a long institutional memory: the library was formerly known as the Virginia State Library and as the Virginia State Library and Archives. Its history reaches back even before 1823 to collections gathered for colonial and state authorities; the first permanent home was a small room on the top floor of the State Capitol, until the books and records eventually outgrew that cramped space.
The weight of those collections settles in this place, East Broad Street stretching two blocks toward the Virginia State Capitol building before you.