About the Library of Congress and the Preservation Directorate
The Library of Congress (LC) is the main research arm of the United States Congress, home to the Copyright Office, and is the largest library in the world. Founded in 1800, LC was first housed inside the Capitol then moved to the Thomas Jefferson building when construction was completed in 1897. Today, the Capitol Hill complex has three buildings - the Jefferson, the John Adams building (built in 1938), and the James Madison building (built in 1981). (See the image below for a bird's eye view of the Capitol Hill complex.) The Preservation Directorate is located in the Madison building.
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The Library's collection totals approximately 170 million items, including 39 million catalogued books and other printed material in over 470 languages and 73 million manuscripts. LC's holdings also include the largest collection of rare books in North America, the largest collection of legal materials, films, maps, sheet music, and sound recordings.
View of the James Madison Memorial Building from the roof of the Thomas Jefferson Building. (Image courtesy of The Architect of the Capitol.)
The Preservation Directorate has existed in various forms since 1900. In 1967, the various preservation activities were consolidated into the Preservation Office, known today as the Preservation Directorate. The Directorate has 5 divisions: Binding and Collections Care, Collections Management, Conservation, Preservation Reformatting, and Preservation Research and Testing. The Conservation Division is further divided into 4 sections - book conservation, paper conservation, collection stabilization, and special format conservation. An organizational chart for LC can be found here and one for the Library Collections and Services Group, which includes the Preservation Directorate, can be found here.
Bird's eye view of the Capitol Hill Complex. (Image courtesy of the Library of Congress.)