The Portland daily press., 1881-01-10
The Congressional Library.

Plans and designs in several different styles
of architecture have been sent to Senator
voorhees,, chairman of the joint Congressional
committee, for the proposed new library build
ing. aOd the committee will report the bill for
the construction OF the building soon after the
recess. The members OF the committee who,
by reason of their duties, have been all
through the library, fully appreciate the
urgent necessity of providing new building
at the earliest practicable moment, and they
intend to press this important matter with all
their ability.
Every available inch of space in the library
rooms at the capitol seems to be filed, and
yet there is a steady increase of the number of
volumes. The shelves contain double rows
of books-one row behind the other-while on
the floors are stacks and piles of books period
icals, etc., as high as they can be piled.
For the present year the copyright entries
reach about twenty thousand, while in no
former year did the number go above eigh-
teen thousand. Two copies or volumes of
every copyright are required by law to be sent
to the library. so that by this channel alone
the increase in the library this year has been
forty thousand. Among the copyrights are
multitudes of large, fine engravings, chromos
and other works of art. which occupy much
more space than corresponding number OF
books.
The growth of maps has been enormous.
and though they are valuable all of them are
unused, because of want of space to arrange
them for display, and they must remain as so
much dead matter until the library is put in
quarters where they can be properly displayed.
Complete sets of the books and works printed
by the government are required to be kept in
he library, and by this means thousands of
,lumes, many of them very large, are annu-
ally added to the already overcrowded rooms.
Then there is an immense yearly increase OF
English and other foreign books and period
icals and of the public transactions of learned
societies and organizations throughout the
civilized world, which are obtained through
exchanges with the Smithsonian Institution
for similar works of our country. The Smith
sonian sends these vast and valuable exchanges
to the Congressional library.
To these must be added thousands of vol
umes of documents published annually by
foreign governments, which are obtained by
exchange for the works, documents, etc., pub
lished by our government. All these exchang-
es from all the governments, making yearly
of itself vast collection, are stored in the
Congressional library. Beside these several
channels of collection and increase there is
the yearly purchase of books and publications,
ETC., with money appropriated by Congress for
that purpose. This stream is constantly pour
ing in upon the library, which is already
so packed and jammed that it is utterly impos'
sible to make room for more. Everybody
readily admits that there must be library
building to accommodate the rapidly growing
institution, and those most familiar with the
condition of the library realize that the new
accommodations must be provided without de-
lay, as much of the valuable collection is being
injured because of want of sufficient room to
properly arrange the contents. The purpose
of the committee is to provide money and to
begin work on the proposed new building in
Judiciary square as soon as the weather will
admit of that sort of work, and then push the
building to completion. Once in the new
building the library will be kept open at
nights and everybody will be welcome to its
reading rooms. The regulations for taking
books from the library will probably remain as
at present, controlled by members of Congress.
The idea will be to make it national reading
library and not a circulating library. The
present library rooms are not provided with
gas, and therefore could not be kept open at
night even if the rules permitted it.-Wash-
ington Star.