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The United States Senate Library is the library of the United States Senate. The United States Senate Librarian manages the Senate Library, which is under the supervision of the Office of the Secretary of the United States Senate. Leona I. Faust has been the Senate Librarian since 2009. The Library is located in the Russell Senate Office Building in SR-B15.


History

The Senate Library was founded during the 2nd Congress (1791–1792) after a
resolution Resolution(s) may refer to: Common meanings * Resolution (debate), the statement which is debated in policy debate * Resolution (law), a written motion adopted by a deliberative body * New Year's resolution, a commitment that an individual m ...
directing the Secretary to "procure and deposit in his office, the laws of several states" for use by senators. In the early years leading to the library officially becoming established, the library suffered two fires. The first fire occurred during the
burning of Washington The Burning of Washington was a British invasion of Washington City (now Washington, D.C.), the capital of the United States, during the Chesapeake Campaign of the War of 1812. It is the only time since the American Revolutionary War that a f ...
in 1814 when the British attacked
Washington Washington commonly refers to: * Washington (state), United States * Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States ** A metonym for the federal government of the United States ** Washington metropolitan area, the metropolitan area centered o ...
during the War of 1812 and sacked
Capitol Hill Capitol Hill, in addition to being a metonym for the United States Congress, is the largest historic residential neighborhood in Washington, D.C., stretching easterly in front of the United States Capitol along wide avenues. It is one of the ...
. To replace the collection, Thomas Jefferson offered his private library at cost. Jefferson's 6,487 volumes formed the heart of the new Library of Congress collection. The second fire occurred in 1851 and destroyed all but 20,000 volumes in the Library of Congress collection. The damage to the Library of Congress collections prompted the Senate to preserve its records by designating space in the
Capitol A capitol, named after the Capitoline Hill in Rome, is usually a legislative building where a legislature meets and makes laws for its respective political entity. Specific capitols include: * United States Capitol in Washington, D.C. * Numerou ...
for the Senate Library. The Senate decided to procure and install steel shelving to replace wooden shelving to fireproof their collection from future damage. Secretaries oversaw the early collection of the library which included printed bills and resolutions,
committee A committee or commission is a body of one or more persons subordinate to a deliberative assembly. A committee is not itself considered to be a form of assembly. Usually, the assembly sends matters into a committee as a way to explore them more ...
reports and other Senate documents. William Hickey, Chief Clerk of the Senate (1855–1866), had been collecting 10 copies of every Senate document since 1824. Starting to accumulate a vast collection, Hickey lobbied for a library to manage and preserve all of these documents for use by the Senate. Despite various attempts to establish a library, it was not until February 11, 1870, that the Senate designated three rooms (S-331, S-332, and S-333) in the Library of Congress for the Senate Library. In 1871, George S. Wagner was appointed the first Senate Librarian. Wagner has the task of organizing Hickey's collection for better access and for preservation purposes (many of the materials were in fragile condition). By 1890, the collection was exceeding 98,000 volumes and was outgrowing the space in the library. Many rare documents and manuscripts were in a basement storage under poor conditions. Some of the materials in this suffering storage place were signed by
George Washington George Washington (February 22, 1732, 1799) was an American military officer, statesman, and Founding Father who served as the first president of the United States from 1789 to 1797. Appointed by the Continental Congress as commander of th ...
. In 1902, the library was appropriated funds to build steel storage shelves. The new storage space was housed in the Senate attic (S-410 and S-419). In 1999, the Senate Library moved from the Capitol to the Russell Senate Office Building. The library now resides in SR-B15.


Mission, materials, and services

The Library serves present and former senators, member and committee staff, Senate leadership, and Senate officers. The mission of the Senate Library has changed over time, as a focus has changed from the collection and storage of Senate documents to providing legislative, historic, legal, business and general reference materials. The Senate Library aims to carry out its mission in an accurate, prompt, and nonpartisan manner. The Library's book collection comprises 14,000 volumes of works on history, geography, biography, politics and law and has material dating back to the early 19th century. Many were signed by the author or previous owner. The Senate Library receives the
United States Congressional Serial Set The United States Congressional Serial Set began in 1817 as the official collection of reports and documents of the United States Congress. The collection was published in a " serial" fashion, hence its name. It has been described as the "nation's ...
, which contains over 15,000 congressional reports and documents since 1817. The Library added a legislative status database in 1975. Calls for this service have peaked at 80,000 per year. Today, the library serves as many people in one day as it did in one month in 1964, nearly 60,000 inquiries per year, based primarily on the growth in Senate staff from 2,000 in 1964 to more than 7,000 today. The Senate Library has a
reading room Reading room may refer to: * Reference library * British Museum Reading Room The British Museum Reading Room, situated in the centre of the Great Court of the British Museum, used to be the main reading room of the British Library. In 1997, ...
, study carrels, computers, and a scanning and
microform Microforms are scaled-down reproductions of documents, typically either films or paper, made for the purposes of transmission, storage, reading, and printing. Microform images are commonly reduced to about 4% or of the original document size. F ...
center. The Library's microfilm collection includes over one million microform and over 6,000 microfilm reels. Library tours and scheduled throughout the year and personalized tours can be made by request. The Library makes deliveries twice daily to offices with requested information. The authorized library staff is 22 people, including the Librarian and 13 other professionals


See also

* National Technical Reports Library


Notes


References

* Faust, L. ''UNUM: Newsletter of the Office of the Secretary of the Senate'', January/February 1999, Vol 3, Issue 1.
''THE 125TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE SENATE LIBRARY (Senate - September 19, 1996)'', Congressional Record, Library of Congress''A Brief Construction History of the Capital (The Architect of the Capital)''
* United States Senate Library, S. Pub. 109-21. {{coord, 38.8928, -77.0069, display=title, region:US-DC_type:landmark Archives in the United States Agencies of the United States Congress Government buildings on the National Register of Historic Places in Washington, D.C. United States Capitol grounds United States Libraries in Washington, D.C.