United States Senate Library

The United States Senate Library is under the Office of the Secretary of the United States Senate and serves the United States Senate. The Library is located in the Senate Russell Building, in SR-B15.

History of the Senate Library

The United States Senate Library was founded by the Second Congress (1791-1792) when they adopted a resolution 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 War of 1812 when the British sacked Capitol Hill (Burning of Washington). To replace the collection, Thomas Jefferson offered his private library at cost. Thomas 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 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 Reports and other Senate Documents. William Hickey, Chief Clerk of the Senate (1855-66), 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. In 1902, the library was appropriated funds to build steel storage shelves. The new storage space was housed in the Senate attic (S-410 & S-419).

In 1999, the Senate Library moved from the United States Capitol to the Russell Senate Office Building. The library now resides in SR-B15.

Mission of the Senate Library

The mission of the Senate Library has changed, from collection and storing Senate documents in 1871, to providing legislative, historic, legal, business and general reference. The Senate Library provides the Senate with legislative, legal, and general reference services in an accurate, prompt, and nonpartisan manner. The Library serves present and former Senators, staff members in Member and Committee offices, Senate Leadership and Senate Officers. The Senate Library has a reading room, study carrels, computers, and a scanning and microform center. Library tours and scheduled throughout the year and personalized tours can be made by request. The library has a staff of 22 and makes twice a day deliveries to offices with requested information.

Unique services and materials

* Among traditional services offered by the library already mentioned, the Library added a legislative status database in 1975. Calls for this service have peaked at 80,000 per year.

* The Senate Library receives the "United States Congressional Serial Set", which contains over 15,000 congressional reports and documents since 1817.

* The Library has a book collection dating back to the early 1800s of over 14,000 volumes of works on history, geography, biography, politics and law. Many of these were signed by the author or previous owner.

* The library has a microfilm collection of over one million microform and over 6,000 microfilm reels.

Current Senate Librarian

Mary E. Cornaby, United States Senate Librarian, 2008 - present.

References

Faust, L. "UNUM: Newsletter of the Office of the Secretary of the Senate", January/February 1999, Vol 3, Issue 1.

* [http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?r104:S19SE6-518: "THE 125TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE SENATE LIBRARY (Senate - September 19, 1996)", Congressional Record, Library of Congress]

* [http://www.aoc.gov/cc/capitol/capitol_construction.cfm: "A Brief Construction History of the Capital (The Architect of the Capital)]

United States Senate Library, S. Pub. 109-21.

Leona Faust (personal communication, December 2006)