Library of Congress

The Library of Congress has a lot of responsibilities. It’s massive in both physical scale and in scale of services. So how did it start, and how did it evolve to be the largest library in the world?

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

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• 2:07Holly Frey?

  Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production of iHeartRadio.

• 2:18Holly Frey?

  Welcome to the podcast. I'm Holly Frey. And I'm Tracy V. Wilson. So, Dr. Carla Hayden, who has been the Librarian of Congress since 2016, was fired by the sitting president on May 8th of this year. The president also fired Shira Pollmutter, the Registrar of Copyrights, which is, of course, very linked to the Library of Congress. This has sparked a lot of controversy for a number of reasons. For one, Librarian of Congress at this point is a role that's typically appointed to 10-year terms. Many historically have served much longer than that. Dr. Hayden had not served that period of time. And for another, federal law outlines the process of appointing a librarian.

• 3:02Holly Frey?

  And it, like many other positions, is filled by the president nominating a candidate, and then the Senate has to confirm that candidate. But it was very clear in this case that the intention was simply to replace Dr. Hayden. And the president named Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanch as Acting Head of the Library. He's the president's personal attorney. He absolutely does not have a library science degree or any practical knowledge of the field. And in addition to those reasons for this being controversial, another one that should not be overlooked is that Dr. Hayden has long been described by her peers and her colleagues as an exemplary librarian in every position that she has had, without exception. And in response to this dismissal,

• 3:47Holly Frey?

  American Library Association President Cindy Hull issued a statement on behalf of the organization in support of Dr. Hayden. And this is a case where even GOP congresspeople have raised a red flag over this move. Because in addition to feeling as though the power of Congress has kind of been sidestepped, there are also concerns about the White House having improper access to information regarding the Congressional Research Service, which handles confidential research requests all the time. We're going to talk about the origin point of that service today. When two officials from Blanch's office arrived at the library on Monday, May 12th, claiming to have jurisdiction there, they were denied entry. And that move on the part of the library was supported.

• 4:31Holly Frey?

  By congressional leadership from both sides of the aisle. And then when questioned about that dismissal, the president's press secretary said that Dr. Hayden was fired because she was, quote, "putting inappropriate books in the library for children." Okay, that's a needle scratch moment for me because the Library of Congress doesn't lend books to children. It's not a circulating library. It doesn't lend books to anyone. It's a research library, and that means that all of the books and other materials stay on the premises. There is also an age limit. No one under the age of 16 is allowed to do research there. So while there are some children's programs, anyone under the age of 16, even attending those, has to be accompanied by an adult.

• 5:14Holly Frey?

  And there are children's collections, but most of that material is held as part of the library's responsibility as the nation's center for copyright. So that excuse didn't really hold water, and it also evidenced the fact that there are people that do not know what the Library of Congress is or does. So today, we are going to talk about its history, how it came to have some of the responsibilities it does. I'm qualifying that by saying some of the responsibilities because the Library of Congress has a lot of responsibilities. It is a massive place in both physical scale and in the scale of its services.

• 5:50Tracy V. Wilson?

  We're going to start in 1800, which was an important year in US history. Up to that point, as we've mentioned at various times on the show, the US government was operating out of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. But that year, the government moved to Washington DC. The move to DC had been planned for a decade. In the Residence Act of 1790, Washington had been selected as the new capital in an effort to find a neutral spot that was not considered either north or south. This is part of a compromise over the issue of slavery. Pro-slavery southern states were concerned that a capital in an abolitionist state would automatically be slanted against their interests.

• 6:36Tracy V. Wilson?

  Which meant that the other states are willing to kind of appease the South on this. There were other factors in the mix as well, but this decision was made that a new city would be developed on attractive land that straddled Virginia and Maryland. And in the meantime, Philadelphia would continue to serve as the Capitol for another decade while this new municipality was being planned and built. That's a whole separate story.

• 7:02Holly Frey?

  Yeah. One of the elements that was on the wish list, of course, for the new federal city was a library. And this may not have been as much of a concern if the Capitol had stayed in Philadelphia, where there were established library resources, or if it had been in New York, which had been another option and also had library resources. But because the new Capitol was also a new city, a library was going to have to be created. On April 24th, 1800, as part of a larger congressional act that officially moved the government to Washington DC, $5,000 was allocated for books, and that made it the first budget of what would become the Library of Congress.

• 7:45Holly Frey?

  A committee was also formed to administer those funds and oversee the day-to-day functions of this new library, which was going to be housed in the Capitol Building. The first iteration of the collection was just 152 items, and it was kept in the Secretary of Senate's office. An order was placed in spring of 1800 with a bookseller in London to purchase 740 more items to expand the library's holdings.

• 8:12Tracy V. Wilson?

  In 1802, during Thomas Jefferson's presidency, the library was moved to its own room in the Capitol's north wing. That same year, the position of Librarian of Congress was established as a presidential appointment. So let's clarify this a little bit. This library is a legislative office. It's not a lending library, like a local library branch. The Library of Congress was always intended to serve Congress. Research materials there were consulted when legislation was being drafted, or when congressmen wanted to study up on a topic that was being discussed. In addition to books, that meant research materials like maps and surveys that could

• 8:55Tracy V. Wilson?

  inform the way the country would grow. In that initial period, when the librarian of Congress was paid $2 a day, only members of Congress, the president and vice president, could access this collection.

• 9:10Holly Frey?

  The first librarian of Congress was John James Beckley. Beckley was born in England in 1757, and he had moved to the Virginia Colony in the late 1760s, when he was still a boy, to work there as an office scribe. And as he grew into adulthood, he moved into politics. He actually became one of the first city councilmen of Richmond, Virginia. And as he rose through the ranks politically, he moved first to New York and then to Philadelphia. And along the way, he became a close ally of Thomas Jefferson. He actually campaigned for Jefferson and against Federalist politicians, often writing political commentaries in various papers under pseudonyms.

• 9:50Holly Frey?

  When it came time to appoint a librarian in 1802, Jefferson immediately picked Beckley.

• 9:57Tracy V. Wilson?

  In those early days of the institution, the congressional committee was making most of the decisions regarding the library. But one of Beckley's important tasks was creating the library's first catalog, which was printed just months after he was selected for the job. That's an impressive feat, because the librarianship was not his only job. He was also clerk of the House of Representatives. The catalog of the books, maps, and charts belonging to the library of the two Houses of Congress was a guide to the initial collection of 964 items in that initial small offering. Beckley held the library in office until 1807, when he died.

• 10:39Tracy V. Wilson?

  During the later part of his tenure, the collection moved from its dedicated space, as that area was reallocated to use for the House of Representatives. And the library was temporarily kind of nomadic. It moved from room to room, while a more permanent solution was sought after.

• 10:57Holly Frey?

  I don't know why that tickles me, knowing it literally was getting shuffled around from like, conference room to conference room.

• 11:02Tracy V. Wilson?

  They were like, "We need this one for a meeting."

• 11:04Holly Frey?

  Yeah, you gotta move the Library of Congress out of here.

• 11:08Holly Frey?

  Before a permanent space was found, though, in 1814, during the War of 1812, Washington DC was burned down by British forces, and this destroyed the Library of Congress in its entirety. Thomas Jefferson, who had steered the early years of the library, as we've discussed, had retired to his home Monticello at this point, and he read about the fire in the paper. He almost immediately wrote to a friend, quote, "I learned from the newspapers that the vandalism of our enemy has triumphed at Washington over science as well as the arts by the destruction of the public library with the noble edifice in which it was deposited." Jefferson had himself amassed a pretty impressive library with a lot of rare volumes collected

• 11:53Holly Frey?

  from Europe over the years, and he had always intended that he was going to leave the collection to the Library of Congress when he died, although he wanted the government to pay his estate for it. This is a thing that I find kind of funny. There are write-ups about this that are like, "He donated his..." No, he didn't donate. He sold it. Let's be clear, there was a transaction involved. But in light of the fire, he just sped up his plan, and he offered his full collection, which was believed to be 6,487 books, to replace that lost Library of Congress collection, which had at that point been less than half that size. And he was paid $23,950 for the entirety of it, which it actually turned out was larger than he had realized.

• 12:38Holly Frey?

  When he started really going through it and prepping it, it was 6,707 books total. He did not ask for any additional money for the extra books. This was actually kind of controversial in a variety of ways. Some people thought volumes in his collection were not appropriate for the government to own, and that he was making a cash grab. But in any case, it did replenish the library, and Jefferson used the money to settle a number of debts. And he sent the collection, including its bookcases, to Washington. The last wagon load was sent to the Capitol on May 8, 1815.

• 13:14Tracy V. Wilson?

  Coming up, we'll talk about the newly replenished library collection and where it was stored. But first, we will hear from the sponsors that keep the show going.

• 13:26Holly Frey?

  A rare disease diagnosis can change your life, but it doesn't have to define your future. Tune in for season seven of Untold Stories: Life with a Severe Autoimmune Condition, a Ruby Studio production in partnership with Argenx. Hosted by public health and policy expert Dr. Martine Hackett, Untold Stories: Life with a Severe Autoimmune Condition pushes the conversation within the rare disease community forward. Featuring guests living with MG, CIDP, myositis, SMA, and other rare autoimmune conditions, each episode explores hope, progress, and connection. How does research create new opportunities? How do shared experiences help light the way forward? How do we best show up for each other?

• 14:11Holly Frey?

  Tune in to find out. Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

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• 16:15Holly Frey?

  Initially, the new Library of Congress collection, acquired from Thomas Jefferson, as well as new volumes as they were added, lived in the hotel that served as the temporary home of the Capitol post fire. And then in 1818, it moved back into the rebuilt Capitol Building, where it was stored in the attic as a temporary option. This was like an attic that had functional use. It wasn't just shoved up there. It took six years, though, for a purpose-built room in the building to be created by architect Charles Bullfinch. On December 22, 1825, just a year after that new room was ready, there was another fire. This one was an accident. It was started by a candle. And the fire was caught relatively early and extinguished,

• 17:00Holly Frey?

  but it instigated discussions about fireproofing to prevent this growing collection from being lost as the first one was.

• 17:08Tracy V. Wilson?

  But nothing came of these discussions. And on December 24, 1851, there was another fire at the Library of Congress. This one also an accident. 35,000 books were destroyed, including more than half of the books that had come from Jefferson's collection. The 1851 fire made it apparent that the Library of Congress would always be vulnerable unless steps were taken to help ensure the safety of the collection. Thomas U. Walter was hired for another project, which was designing a fireproof room for the library.

• 17:44Holly Frey?

  That new room, which was made of iron and ran along the west front of the Capitol, was officially opened on August 23rd, 1853. Two additional wings, which were also fireproof, were added in 1866. Those wings, which had been built with a budget of $160,000, filled up very quickly. One of the big space fillers was the newly acquired Library of the Smithsonian Institution. That new material on its own totaled about 40,000 volumes. It really was starting to seem like the library's physical home could just never keep up with its very rapid expansion. But things were actually about to get much more intense in terms of collection growth.

• 18:28Tracy V. Wilson?

  In 1870, the Library of Congress became the center of copyright in the US. This happened as part of the Copyright Law of 1870, which began as "an act to revise, consolidate, and amend the statutes relating to patents and copyrights." By making the Library of Congress so central to copyright claims, Congress and President Grant had inadvertently created a new problem. As part of the law, the library was given two copies of all copyrighted items. Soon, that meant it was under an avalanche of copyright deposits, and it ran out of room. That happened really quickly.

• 19:08Holly Frey?

  Really quickly, because by the end of 1871, just 18 months after the library was made the Copyright Deposit Center, Congress received word from Ainsworth Rand Spofford, the librarian, that a new building was absolutely necessary. He had campaigned for the library to become the hub of copyright in the US, but he had created a massive job for himself in terms of its management. He mentioned in an update the following year that library staff had resorted to piling books all over the floor because there was nowhere else to put them. Among other issues, the library had also continued to take in large collection additions, often in the form of gifts.

• 19:49Holly Frey?

  In 1869, for example, nearly 1,000 books were sent as a gift from the Emperor of China.

• 19:56Tracy V. Wilson?

  Although there was an acute need for a new building, it took years for one to be built. It wasn't until 1886 that Congress authorized the construction of a purpose-built building for the library. Yet another decade passed before that got built, although Spofford made it clear that the crowding problems were just making it unfit for use in a lot of cases. He also made growth predictions to make it clear that Congress needed to be thinking long-term about this collection. He said that he expected that by the 1970s, there would be 2.5 million items in the collection.

• 20:33Holly Frey?

  Yeah, that was an underestimation, but at the time, it was a pretty good guess. The new building, though, did open on November 1st, 1897, just 16 years from when Spofford notified Congress of the space issues. By that point, roughly 40% of the library collection had been acquired through copyright deposits. And along the way, Spofford had continued to write updated reports, noting in early 1891, that the collection had swelled to 650,000 books and more than 200,000 pamphlets. But the completed library, long though its gestation had been, was a marvel. It was touted as the largest and the safest library in the world, and it had also come

• 21:17Holly Frey?

  with a very high price tag. It had taken years of process, arguments, debate, and setbacks. There had been two architects on it initially, although each of them had been dismissed along the way. And ultimately, the second one was replaced in 1892 by Edward Pierce Casey. But then, when Casey's father died in 1896, Bernard R. Green stepped in to finish the building. And this building featured not only a beautiful Italian Renaissance exterior, but an interior that was filled with art and sculpture commissioned from US artists, and it was nicknamed the Temple of the Arts.

• 21:53Tracy V. Wilson?

  Also, in 1898, the process for appointing a librarian of Congress changed under the presidency of Grover Cleveland. From then on, the president has been able to select a candidate, but the Senate has to approve that candidate. The 1897 legislation also changed the role of the librarian officially. While it was initially a position that had less authority to make decisions about the collection than Congress did, Ainsworth Spofford had taken on a lot more responsibility in that role, as the library had grown far beyond anything that could be managed as kind of a side job or part-time project. So by the end of the 19th century, the role came with an established salary of $5,000

• 22:38Tracy V. Wilson?

  a year and a lot more autonomy about how the library was staffed and run. A separate role of superintendent of grounds was also created for the library, which also came with a $5,000 salary.

• 22:51Holly Frey?

  And perhaps most important, at least to me, and we could talk about this on Friday, in 1898, catalogers were added to the library staff to review the collection catalog and to create a new classification system that could more effectively encompass the existing holdings and those that would be acquired in the future. And this was the beginning of the Library of Congress Classification System, or LCC, that's used in many academic libraries today.

• 23:19Tracy V. Wilson?

  Starting in 1902, the Library of Congress started selling pre-printed catalog cards to other libraries. That meant that if a library was using the LCC system, when it acquired a new volume for its own collection, it could just purchase the already cataloged record for it and add that card to the card catalog. That would save cataloging time. For anybody young enough to have never used a card catalog, these cards were inserted into drawers in a specialty catalog cabinet. They were alphabetical, and users could search the catalog by looking for a subject, an author, or a title.

• 23:58Tracy V. Wilson?

  So every volume typically had three cards, one with each possible search approach headlined on it. Every one of a volume's associated cards would contain the volume's catalog number, so the user could jot that down and then go find the book or other material in the stacks. The money made from card sales went to the US Treasury. The card business grew rapidly as public and educational libraries signed on as subscribers. Soon it needed its own staff. My local library branch uses an old card catalog cabinet as a seed library.

• 24:41Holly Frey?

  Yeah, they've been repurposed in a lot of fun ways. I, I found myself so nostalgic trying to write out how a card catalog worked. I was like, oh my gosh, we had to write down the call number.

• 24:54Tracy V. Wilson?

  Yeah, I remember in elementary school being taken to the library and shown how the card catalog works and how to look things up in it. And there was like a little, a stack of little, little papers on top of it with little short pencils where you could write down the call number.

• 25:12Holly Frey?

  Oh yeah, that's like a dopamine hit thinking about that. In the early 20th century, the identity of the library evolved once more when President Theodore Roosevelt signed an executive order that made the library the home of a great many important documents. That executive order was dated March 9th, 1903, and it made the personal papers of multiple founding fathers and records of the Continental Congress part of the library's collection. And this was the beginning of a lot of growth under librarian Herbert Putnam, who not only enlarged the library's holdings, but also expanded the services that the library offered, creating more accessible research options for patrons, including a reference service with library staff available to assist with

• 25:57Holly Frey?

  research requests. There were also new cultural programs like concerts added to the library's schedule. When World War I began, Putnam, at the request of the American Library Association, headed up a project to send books, periodicals, et cetera, to US soldiers.

• 26:14Tracy V. Wilson?

  In 1921, the two foundational documents of the United States, that's the Declaration of Independence and the US Constitution, were both added to the Library of Congress collection. Before this move, these two documents had been maintained by the State Department. The National Archives had not been established yet, so the library offered the best environment for preservation and care. The documents got a dedicated shrine on February 28, 1924, so not only were they carefully preserved, but visitors could also see them. They stayed in the library until 1952, when they were transferred to the National Archive.

• 26:55Holly Frey?

  Yeah, there's a little side trip that they took that we'll talk about in a minute. In 1939, the library got yet another building, designed by the architecture firm of Pearson and Wilson. This building was simple in its layout, prioritizing workspaces for library visitors in addition to the book stacks. But simple did not mean small. This building was designed to hold 10 million volumes. This building was originally called the Annex, and it retained that name until it was renamed the Library of Congress Thomas Jefferson Building in 1976, under President Gerald Ford. If you're familiar with the Library of Congress, you're like, that's not the Thomas Jefferson Building. That's because that was its name for only four years. In 1980, when another new library building was opened,

• 27:40Holly Frey?

  that's the James Madison Memorial Building, when that happened, the main library was renamed the Thomas Jefferson Building. The former Annex/Thomas Jefferson Building became the John Adams Building.

• 27:52Tracy V. Wilson?

  The 1940s were an interesting time for the library. For one, there was a recognition that some of the collection needed to be preserved in new ways. Things like archival newspapers, which had not been intended to last long term when they were initially printed, were literally falling apart. The library requested a small budget to commit some of the more important journals to microfilm for long-term access that would not further degrade the collection.

• 28:22Holly Frey?

  And of course, their microfilm procedures and program grew a huge amount from there. For another thing, World War II was deeply impactful for the library. Just as the fires of the earlier years had given rise to considerations as to how the collection might be protected, the war made Congress, then library and Archibald MacLeish and President Franklin D. Roosevelt aware of the vulnerability of the nation's important documents and collections should an enemy power choose to attack them. For this reason, during World War II, the Constitution and Declaration of Independence, as well as the library's Gutenberg Bible, were all moved to Fort Knox, although that was not public knowledge at the time. Other valuable

• 29:07Holly Frey?

  items were also moved to secret locations. This also included the Lincoln Cathedral copy of the Magna Carta, which the British had brought to the US for safekeeping. The library also changed its hours and it was open 24/7 for government officials during the war, while public use hours were cut down. The items that had been moved out for safety were returned to the library in the autumn of 1944.

• 29:33Tracy V. Wilson?

  In 1944, the library was also the debut location for a ballet called Appalachian Spring, one of my favorite pieces of music. Please don't come at me for how I just said the word Appalachian. The music was composed by Erin Copeland and Martha Graham choreographed it. The story of the ballet, which was commissioned by arts benefactor Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge, was intended to capture a moment in the history of the US. It's about a couple in a Pennsylvania shaker town during westward expansion. It starts with their wedding and follows them through their lives in a small town that's just getting established. Graham named the ballet after a line in a poem by Hart Crane called "The Bridge." When Copeland

• 30:17Tracy V. Wilson?

  asked her if the poem had anything to do with the ballet, she told him, quote, "No, I just liked the title and I took it." It premiered in the library's Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge Auditorium, which had been added to the Thomas Jefferson Library Building in the 1920s.

• 30:34Holly Frey?

  Story of that ballet and Copeland and Graham's collaboration, and sometimes lack thereof, is its own fascinating story. I highly recommend if you like a little arts drama.

• 30:45Tracy V. Wilson?

  Yeah, many years ago, I almost did an Aaron Copland episode and I got like overwhelmed with it. And I put it to the side and haven't returned to it.

• 30:53Holly Frey?

  Every quote he has given about Martha Graham tickles the pants off me. It's so funny. It's very like, well, we were working on that. She didn't want him to see any of the ballet. He didn't see anything until the day before it debuted. He was still sending over music very late in the game. Like, there was just a lot of back and forth. They weren't in the same place, so it was a very, um, a huge achievement in terms of two artists that are maybe struggling to connect, creating something that's really unique. But it also sounds like a wild ride. I can't imagine being one of the performers trying to like, okay, we don't have what now? How soon do we open?

• 31:37Holly Frey?

  In just a moment, we are going to talk about some of the services that formally became part of the library's offerings after World War II. But first, we are going to pause for a sponsor break.

• 31:50Holly Frey?

  A rare disease diagnosis can change your life, but it doesn't have to define your future. Tune in for season seven of Untold Stories: Life with a Severe Autoimmune Condition, a Ruby Studio production in partnership with Argenx. Hosted by public health and policy expert Dr. Martine Hackett, Untold Stories: Life with a Severe Autoimmune Condition pushes the conversation within the rare disease community forward. Featuring guests living with MG, CIDP, myositis, SMA, and other rare autoimmune conditions, each episode explores hope, progress, and connection. How does research create new opportunities? How do shared experiences help light the way forward? How do we best show up for each other?

• 32:35Holly Frey?

  Tune in to find out. Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

• 32:49Speaker 01

  That sound? That's pro squash. Some of the fastest rallies in sport played inches from the crowd. The National Squash League is back in full swing for season four. The sport is heading to the 2028 Olympics for the first time, and you can see it up close right now in a city near you. Watch every match for free on YouTube. Search National Squash League and hit subscribe or follow live updates on Instagram at NSL.Sport.

• 33:16Speaker 03

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• 34:28Holly Frey?

  Apply today at ondeck.com. Funds could be available as soon as tomorrow. Depending on certain loan attributes, your business loan may be issued by OnDeck or Celtic Bank. OnDeck does not lend in North Dakota. All loans and amounts subject to lender approval.

• 34:46Holly Frey?

  In 1946, a specialized research department was created for the library through the Legislative Reorganization Act of 1946. This was the Library Reference Service, which had already existed to assist Congress with research needs. But this act made it its own department with a budget so that specialists could be hired to make its offerings more robust. In 1970, the LRS was renamed the Congressional Research Service, or CRS. We referenced that at the very beginning of the episode. And it was restructured at that time with an expanded list of responsibilities, including assisting individual congresspeople and committees with policy research.

• 35:27Tracy V. Wilson?

  In 1958, librarian of Congress Eloquency Mumford established an interdepartmental committee on mechanized information retrieval. That committee was tasked with figuring out if there was a way to mechanize the catalog. We mentioned the card cataloging system earlier. Over the years, since the turn of the century, when the card catalog first started to be used, the Library of Congress's own card catalog had become so huge as to be unwieldy. There were more than 9 million cards in the catalog in the 1950s.

• 36:05Holly Frey?

  In the autumn of 1958, an amendment to the Agricultural Trade Development and Assistance Act of 1954 made overseas acquisitions for the library more robust. The collection of foreign publications and materials was further bolstered in 1965. The Higher Education Act of 1965, as the name states, mandated that the library provide more services to academic libraries. But it also enabled the library to use funds for collecting materials from around the world, under the guiding principle that those materials had to be, quote, "of value to scholarship." That also meant that those materials needed to be cataloged and for those cataloging

• 36:47Holly Frey?

  records to be offered to other libraries quickly through their cataloging distribution program. This can be a huge challenge. Cataloging foreign language volumes requires a degree of linguistic proficiency on the part of the cataloger, so multilingual specialists became an important part of the cataloging staff. Within a short period of time, the library had office presences in both London and Rio de Janeiro to acquire books from abroad.

• 37:15Tracy V. Wilson?

  During the 1960s, the library also spearheaded research into book preservation, focusing not on its oldest volumes, but books printed in the late 19th century. That's because changes in paper production actually made a lot of those books more susceptible to paper breakdown than a lot of older pieces in the collection. This was the beginning of the development of standards of preservation practices and ongoing research in preservation science that continues today under the library's preservation directorate.

• 37:52Holly Frey?

  In 1966, the committee that we mentioned earlier that was formed to explore ways to automate search in the catalog, came up with a system that was called machine-readable cataloging. "Mark records," as they were called, still included all of the information that would normally be found on a catalog card, but they were the first digital cataloging records searchable through a terminal. Soon, subscribers could also get these digital files just as they had catalog cards, although they were initially shipped on magnetic tapes. There were still physical cards going into the Library of Congress's catalog and being shipped to libraries that had not transitioned to electronic data use, but the intention was to move everyone away from physical cards.

• 38:36Holly Frey?

  I kind of marveled that this started in 1966. It seems so much earlier than I remembered, even from when I was learning about it on the job.

• 38:45Tracy V. Wilson?

  I had the same response, which led me to Google it to check, which led me to led to me learning that the person who was really the key in the development of this was named Henriette Avram, which is, I was like, is this somebody we need to talk about on the show?

• 39:03Holly Frey?

  Uh, maybe. I looked at her and I felt like I didn't have enough handy material to do an expansion, but she would be awesome if we had some time to really dig in. So, the last day of 1980, so December 31st, was also the last day that any physical cards went into the Library of Congress catalog. Starting in 1981, Mark supplanted physical cards completely, and cataloging new items moved entirely online. Older items, though, were still represented in the collection by catalog cards.

• 39:38Tracy V. Wilson?

  This is also why I remember in my youth, there were some things that we would look up in the physical card catalog and some things that we would look up in this terminal thing that also existed in the library. In 1980, the James Madison Memorial Building was opened as the newest addition to the Library of Congress. This project had been in the works for more than 20 years. The first architectural proposal for it had been submitted in 1958. It eventually became a combination project as a memorial to the fourth President of the United States and a much-needed expansion of library space.

• 40:18Tracy V. Wilson?

  The 2.1 million-square-foot building was one of the largest in Washington, DC. And among other services, the Copyright Office was moved there. One of the Madison quotes on the exterior of the building reads, quote, "Knowledge will forever govern ignorance, and a people who mean to be their own governors must arm themselves with the power that knowledge gives."

• 40:44Holly Frey?

  I'm sure glad it fell to Tracy to read that, because I can't get through that sentence without crying.

• 40:49Tracy V. Wilson?

  I was thinking this too, because we were discussing that quote yesterday.

• 40:55Holly Frey?

  I did not do that on purpose. It just, I lucked out. In June of 1994, the Library of Congress launched its website. That too seems earlier than my brain can handle. This site, over the years, has become a valuable tool for online research through the National Digital Library Program, which also launched in 1994, although work did not officially begin on that program until 1995. The official mission of the program, per the Library of Congress website, is, quote, "assembling a digital library of reproductions of primary source materials to support the study of the history and culture of the United States." This project was only launched after a pilot program had been tested for five years, and

• 41:39Holly Frey?

  it began with a really robust effort to use the best possible means available to accurately reproduce items digitally, ensuring that the results were functional research materials. So that meant that in addition to implementing processes for scanning and digitally photographing things like books and journals and photographs and manuscripts, they also had human beings working to review that material and create records that would make those newly digitized items findable.

• 42:08Tracy V. Wilson?

  This program also worked with K through 12 teachers and librarians to examine the ways that the digitized collections could be used by educators and what gaps existed in the system that were preventing educators and students from really being able to use digital collections effectively. As a result of this work, the Library of Congress launched a learning portal that offers things like lesson plans, study guides, and context for where digitized primary sources fit into history and culture.

• 42:42Holly Frey?

  A related program, the World Digital Library, launched in 2009. For this project, the library joined forces with UNESCO and other organizations to digitize and share primary sources related to world cultures in a variety of languages, all of which is freely available online.

• 43:00Tracy V. Wilson?

  On September 14, 2016, the first woman and first Black librarian of Congress was sworn in, and that was Dr. Carla D. Hayden, who was recently terminated from that position. She was the 14th librarian of Congress. In her speech at her swearing in, she noted the vast distance between times when a person who looked like her was not allowed to learn to read and write and the moment she was experiencing. Hayden's library background, which is impressive, as we mentioned at the top of the show, has always been hailed as exemplary by her peers. This includes training as a children's librarian, and she

• 43:42Tracy V. Wilson?

  sought during her tenure as head of the nation's library to make its incredible collection accessible to all and to bring history alive to children and adults alike through the collection. In 2023, she gave an interview to the University of Chicago News in which she said, quote, "History is a long haul. Times we're going through now, yes, they're kind of rough, but there have been other rough times. And look what's happened and where we've come."

• 44:11Holly Frey?

  Once again, I'm so glad you had to read that.

• 44:13Tracy V. Wilson?

  Ah.

• 44:14Holly Frey?

  Today, the Library of Congress is the world's largest library. There are more than 181 million pieces in the collection and 470 different languages are represented. These items include books, of course, but also manuscripts, and as we've mentioned, photographs, newspapers, et cetera. 12,000 items are added to the library each day, so about 2 million items each year. In a statement that Dr. Hayden gave to the Committee on House Administration two days before she was fired, the librarian noted that in fiscal year 2024, quote, "CRS," that's that research service, "CRS handled over 75,000 congressional requests, published over 1,000 new products, and updated over

• 44:58Holly Frey?

  1,700 existing projects." The Law Library fielded almost 1,000 reference requests that year and, quote, "The library welcomed more than 880,100,000 visitors to its historic Thomas Jefferson Building," a 22% increase from fiscal 2023. 98 million unique visitors made use of the library's websites, totaling half a billion page views. Additionally, Dr. Hayden added, quote, "The National Library Service for the Blind and Print Disabled circulated more than 22 million copies of braille audio and large print material."

• 45:36Tracy V. Wilson?

  Those were all things that were cited in this, but those were really just a handful of the institution's accomplishments under her leadership.

• 45:44Holly Frey?

  I have very strong feelings about the library. I have very strong feelings about kiddies. Do you want to hear the funniest email of all time?

• 45:53Tracy V. Wilson?

  I sure do.

• 45:54Holly Frey?

  I'm not going to read the subject line because it gives away.

• 45:58Tracy V. Wilson?

  I was going to say, is it a spoiler?

• 46:00Holly Frey?

  It is. This is from our listener, Carrie.

• 46:03Tracy V. Wilson?

  Okay.

• 46:04Holly Frey?

  Who I adore for this email.

• 46:07Holly Frey?

  Especially because I'm like so choked up over this episode that now I need this. Carrie writes, oh my gosh, you guys, I am laughing so hard right now. I just finished listening to the Altina Shinazi episode, followed by its behind the scenes episode. When I read the description before listening, I saw that it mentioned cat eyeglasses. I know the hyphen is in the correct spot, so the following misunderstanding is completely my fault. For some reason in my head, when I read the description, I read cat eyeglasses as in eyeglasses for cats. Now, an unfamiliar listener of the podcast may stop and think, why in the world would they do an episode about the inventor of eyeglasses for cats? It clearly didn't work, since I have never seen a cat wearing glasses before.

• 46:50Holly Frey?

  But I, a seasoned listener of many years who knows your love of cats and also knows that there have been several cat art themed episodes in the past, just rolled with it. I kept waiting for it to come up. When you were talking about her art, I thought, oh, she probably painted or sculpted cats wearing glasses. But that didn't happen. Then, when you were actually talking about the cat eye glasses, I thought, oh, the person probably turned her away with her glasses design because they saw that it was a ridiculous idea. And then, when the designer saw the glasses and said he wanted to put them into production, I thought, huh, I wonder if he thought the glasses design was for people instead of cats? And Altina just went with it. I wish I was kidding, I really do.

• 47:32Holly Frey?

  By the end of the show, I had kind of forgotten about it because I got so caught up in Altina's life. It wasn't until the behind the scenes episode, when Holly said cat eye glasses, with the stress slightly different on the words, that it clicked into place and the world made sense again. I had a good laugh about it after all was said and done, and it taught me something about myself. If mobsters came into my place of business trying to intimidate me, I would also completely misread the situation and probably offer them a snack. For pet tax, I am attaching a photo of my Australian labradoodle Coco. She is a pretty princess who loves to steal our food, cuddle, and plop herself wherever she pleases. She has a crush on my fiance and always squeezes herself right between us when he is over and demands pets from him.

• 48:17Holly Frey?

  And of course, he obliges because she'll look at him with her golden eyes and some kind of enchantment takes over. She is irresistible. Thanks for the podcast, it really is one of a kind, and I enjoy listening to it so much, even if sometimes I have a misunderstanding. This is the best email I've read in 100 years.

• 48:36Holly Frey?

  I love the trust, Carrie, that you were like, I'm just gonna roll with this. They're gonna explain this eventually, and we never did. Also, Coco, I get it. I too would fall under her spell in a minute. But that did crack me up. And then I thought about what it would take to try to put glasses on cats and how much I enjoy, you know, retaining my limbs as unmarred by cat scratches as I possibly can and how that would not play out at our house. I have had two cats that would have worn glasses, I'm pretty sure, that were just chill about having things put on them, but most of them would not be. But also, how would you test? Does this look better? Or does this look better? I don't know.

• 49:17Holly Frey?

  I love everything about this.

• 49:19Tracy V. Wilson?

  Yeah. I never know which email you have selected, except on a rare occasion when it comes up before we actually start reading. But you were a little ways into that when I remembered the email clearly and had to go move away from my mic so I didn't start laughing all the way through it.

• 49:37Holly Frey?

  It's so good. It's so good.

• 49:39Tracy V. Wilson?

  So good.

• 49:39Holly Frey?

  That's just the best. And also, I just appreciate your candor in explaining how you got confused, because we have all been there. And not everybody will talk about these moments, but it's important because we all have them. If you would like to write to us and explain something that was very confusing and became comedic, or something else completely, you can do that at [email protected]. We are also very easy to subscribe to. You can do that on the iHeartRadio app or anywhere you listen to your favorite shows. We will be right back here again with more stories soon.

• 50:15Tracy V. Wilson?

  Stuff You Missed in History Class is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

• 50:29Holly Frey?

  A rare disease diagnosis can change your life, but it doesn't have to define your future. In season seven of Untold Stories: Life with a Severe Autoimmune Condition, host Martine Hackett continues the conversation with people living with MG, CIDP, and the broader rare disease community, exploring what comes after diagnosis through stories of hope, progress, and connection. Produced by Ruby Studio in partnership with Argenx. Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

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  This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed humor.