HISTORY The Library of congress was established by an act of congress on April 24, 1800. It was originally housed in the United States capitol. The collection, which stared out small at 740 volumes, slowly increased to over 3,000 volumes by 1814. That year, though, the British along with the capitol burned those books during the assault on Washington. To rapidly replace the collection, Thomas Jefferson offered his personal library to congress at no cost, describing the nature of his books like so: "I do not know that it contains any branch of science which Congress would wish to exclude from the collec