With more than 29 million books, the Library of Congress in Washington, DC, is the world's largest library. Founded in 1800 as a reference library for Congress, it was destroyed by the British dutin the war of 1812. To replace it, Thomas Jefferson sold his personal library containing 6,487 volumes for $23,950 in 1815.
Today, there are nearlt 130 million items on about 530 miles of bookshelves. Along with its huge book collection, the library also houses 2.7 million recordings, 12 million photographs, 4.8 million maps and 58 million manuscripts.
