The Navy Department Library is the official library of the

United States Department of the Navy The United States Department of the Navy (DoN) is one of the three military departments within the Department of Defense of the United States of America. It was established by an Act of Congress on 30 April 1798, at the urging of Secretary o ...

. Located at the

Washington Navy Yard The Washington Navy Yard (WNY) is the former shipyard and ordnance plant of the United States Navy in Southeast Washington, D.C. It is the oldest shore establishment of the U.S. Navy. The Yard currently serves as a ceremonial and administrativ ...

Washington, D.C. ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...

, it is a part of the

Naval History and Heritage Command The Naval History and Heritage Command, formerly the Naval Historical Center, is an Echelon II command responsible for the preservation, analysis, and dissemination of U.S. naval history and heritage located at the historic Washington Navy Yard. ...

History

On March 31, 1800, President

John Adams John Adams (October 30, 1735 – July 4, 1826) was an American statesman, attorney, diplomat, writer, and Founding Fathers of the United States, Founding Father who served as the second president of the United States from 1797 to 1801. Befor ...

wrote to

Secretary of the Navy The secretary of the Navy (or SECNAV) is a statutory officer () and the head (chief executive officer) of the Department of the Navy, a military department (component organization) within the United States Department of Defense. By law, the se ...

Benjamin Stoddert Benjamin Stoddert (1751 – 18 December 1813) was the first United States Secretary of the Navy from 1 May 1798 to 31 March 1801. Early life and education Stoddert was born in Charles County, Maryland in 1751, the son of Captain Thomas Stoddert. ...

directing him to establish a library of "the best writing...on the theory and practice of

naval architecture Naval architecture, or naval engineering, is an engineering discipline incorporating elements of mechanical, electrical, electronic, software and safety engineering as applied to the engineering design process, shipbuilding, maintenance, and o ...

navigation Navigation is a field of study that focuses on the process of monitoring and controlling the movement of a craft or vehicle from one place to another.Bowditch, 2003:799. The field of navigation includes four general categories: land navigation, ...

, gunnery, hydraulics,

hydrostatics Fluid statics or hydrostatics is the branch of fluid mechanics that studies the condition of the equilibrium of a floating body and submerged body " fluids at hydrostatic equilibrium and the pressure in a fluid, or exerted by a fluid, on an imm ...

, and all branches of mathematics subservient to the profession of the sea." The Navy's library survived the 1814

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 ...

during the

War of 1812 The War of 1812 (18 June 1812 – 17 February 1815) was fought by the United States of America and its indigenous allies against the United Kingdom and its allies in British North America, with limited participation by Spain in Florida. It bega ...

and, after the end of the war, located to the Old Navy Department Building. The library had some 1300 volumes in its collection by 1824, although many items were subsequently transferred to the

Library of Congress The Library of Congress (LOC) is the research library that officially serves the United States Congress and is the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It is the oldest federal cultural institution in the country. The library is ...

. The Library is part of the

Federal Depository Library Program The Federal Depository Library Program (FDLP) is a government program created to make U.S. federal government publications available to the public at no cost. As of April 2021, there are 1,114 depository libraries in the United States and its ter ...

Collections and subjects

As of 2019, the Library contains an estimated 114,000 book titles; 374,000 manuscripts; and 189,000 periodical issues. Some 5,644 items in the collection are considered rare. The collection emphasizes "naval, nautical, and military history" including the

history of the United States Navy The history of the United States Navy divides into two major periods: the "Old Navy", a small but respected force of sailing ships that was notable for innovation in the use of ironclads during the American Civil War, and the "New Navy" the ...

and foreign navies. The public may borrow from most of the library's collection via

interlibrary loan Interlibrary loan (abbreviated ILL, and sometimes called interloan, interlending, document delivery, document supply, or interlibrary services, abbreviated ILS) is a service where patrons of one library can borrow materials and receive photocopies ...

. The library uses the

Library of Congress Classification The Library of Congress Classification (LCC) is a system of library classification developed by the Library of Congress in the United States, which can be used for shelving books in a library. LCC is mainly used by large research and academic librar ...

system and employs

Online Computer Library Center OCLC, Inc., doing business as OCLC, See also: is an American nonprofit cooperative organization "that provides shared technology services, original research, and community programs for its membership and the library community at large". It was ...

services (with an interface via

WorldCat WorldCat is a union catalog that itemizes the collections of tens of thousands of institutions (mostly libraries), in many countries, that are current or past members of the OCLC global cooperative. It is operated by OCLC, Inc. Many of the OCL ...

) for cataloging and interlibrary loans. The library's rare book room, a climate-controlled vault being renovated in 2013-2014, contains books written before 1600, and many more recent items such as

John Paul Jones John Paul Jones (born John Paul; July 6, 1747 July 18, 1792) was a Scottish-American naval captain who was the United States' first well-known naval commander in the American Revolutionary War. He made many friends among U.S political elites ( ...

' calling card collection from when he was with the Russian navy, and documents captured on German submarine ''U-505'' when

Daniel V. Gallery Daniel Vincent Gallery (July 10, 1901 – January 16, 1977) was a rear admiral in the United States Navy. He saw extensive action during World War II, fighting U-boats during the Battle of the Atlantic, where his most notable achievement was the ...

boarded it in 1944. Another item is

Captain John Smith John Smith (baptized 6 January 1580 – 21 June 1631) was an English soldier, explorer, colonial governor, Admiral of New England, and author. He played an important role in the establishment of the colony at Jamestown, Virginia, the first pe ...

’s treatise on the duties of sailing men, called ''An Accidence or Path-way to Experience'' (1626), a precursor to ''

The Bluejacket's Manual ''The Bluejacket's Manual'' is the basic handbook for United States Navy personnel. First issued in 1902 to teach recruits about naval procedures and life and offer a reference for active sailors, it has become the "bible" for Navy personnel, pro ...

''. Additional highlights of the collection include

Thomas Truxtun Thomas Truxtun (or Truxton) (February 17, 1755 – May 5, 1822) was an American naval officer after the Revolutionary War, when he served as a privateer, who rose to the rank of commodore in the late eighteenth century and later served in the Quas ...

's ''Instructions, Signals and Explanations...'' (1797), the U.S. Navy's first signal book; rare

Civil War A civil war or intrastate war is a war between organized groups within the same state (or country). The aim of one side may be to take control of the country or a region, to achieve independence for a region, or to change government policies ...

materials from the

Union Navy ), (official) , colors = Blue and gold , colors_label = Colors , march = , mascot = , equipment = , equipment_label ...

and

Confederate Navy The Confederate States Navy (CSN) was the Navy, naval branch of the Confederate States Armed Forces, established by an act of the Confederate States Congress on February 21, 1861. It was responsible for Confederate naval operations during the Amer ...

; and Germany Navy war diaries. The library's logo, derived from a 1906

bookplate An ''Ex Libris'' (from ''ex-librīs'', ), also known as a bookplate (or book-plate, as it was commonly styled until the early 20th century), is a printed or decorative label pasted into a book, often on the front endpaper, to indicate ownership. ...

designed in the U.S. Naval Hydrographic Office, features a

bald eagle The bald eagle (''Haliaeetus leucocephalus'') is a bird of prey found in North America. A sea eagle, it has two known subspecies and forms a species pair with the white-tailed eagle (''Haliaeetus albicilla''), which occupies the same niche as ...

, an

anchor An anchor is a device, normally made of metal , used to secure a vessel to the bed of a body of water to prevent the craft from drifting due to wind or current. The word derives from Latin ''ancora'', which itself comes from the Greek ἄγ ...

Neptune Neptune is the eighth planet from the Sun and the farthest known planet in the Solar System. It is the fourth-largest planet in the Solar System by diameter, the third-most-massive planet, and the densest giant planet. It is 17 times ...

and

Nereid In Greek mythology, the Nereids or Nereides ( ; grc, Νηρηΐδες, Nērēḯdes; , also Νημερτές) are sea nymphs (female spirits of sea waters), the 50 daughters of the 'Old Man of the Sea' Nereus and the Oceanids, Oceanid Doris ...

, a

seashell A seashell or sea shell, also known simply as a shell, is a hard, protective outer layer usually created by an animal or organism that lives in the sea. The shell is part of the body of the animal. Empty seashells are often found washe ...

, and the USS ''Constitution'', all nautical and national symbols.

References

External links

* {{Authority control Libraries in Washington, D.C. Naval History and Heritage Command National libraries in the United States