Beside you rises the Library of Congress, the largest library in the world, holding over one hundred seventy million items in four hundred fifty languages.
The library was established by Congress in 1800, when the government purchased eleven books and three maps for the use of legislators. In 1814, the British burned the collection along with the rest of the Capitol. Thomas Jefferson, in retirement at Monticello, offered to sell his personal library to Congress as a replacement — six thousand four hundred eighty-seven books, the finest private library in America. Congress bought it for twenty-three thousand nine hundred fifty dollars. Then a fire in 1851 destroyed two-thirds of Jefferson's books. The current collection represents centuries of rebuilding.
The building before you — the Thomas Jefferson Building, opened in 1897 — is one of the most lavishly decorated public buildings in America. Every surface inside is covered with mosaic, fresco, marble, and sculpture. The Main Reading Room is a domed space with sixteen bronze statues representing human knowledge, and desks where anyone with a library card can sit and read manuscripts dating back to the fifteenth century.
The library holds the first Gutenberg Bible brought to the Western hemisphere. It holds Thomas Jefferson's rough draft of the Declaration of Independence. It holds recordings of every major American poet reading their own work.
You do not need to be a scholar to have a reader's card. Any American adult can obtain one and enter the reading rooms. This is, in that sense, the most democratic institution in Washington.