The Dismantling of the Library of Congress is an Assault on Knowledge Itself
Some thoughts on the day...
A photo I took of the Science and Business Reading Room at the Library of Congress during renovations last summer.
The news out of Washington, D.C., this morning concerning the Library of Congress is the latest in the string of appalling news surrounding the institution, and cultural heritage in DC more generally: Trump has appointed his former defense attorney, Todd Blanche, to be the acting Librarian of Congress. This comes after Trump’s firing of Dr. Carla Hayden on Thursday and Shira Perlmutter as the head of the Copyright Office on Saturday. Dr. Hayden’s accomplishments while Librarian of Congress were profound, and she is beloved by staff at the institution. My understanding is that the legality of these firings is unclear. Justice Department officials may have tried to enter Copyright Office today and were refused. Congress may also be fighting Blanche’s appointment. Things are evolving rapidly.
Before I proceed: I’m writing this because the Library of Congress is an institution that is dear to me. I’ve had the privilege to work there in a few different capacities over the past six years: as an Innovator-in-Residence, as a Kluge Fellow in Digital Studies, and as a contractor. I wanted to reflect on this news and write a bit about what the Library of Congress does, and what this news might mean.
Many already understand the Library of Congress’s primary function: to serve as Congress’s library. It receives its annual budget from Congress directly, and the Library itself is housed in the Legislative Branch. This makes the LC a particularly important test case for what has been happening with federal agencies these past four months — not just in a legal sense but also in the sense of what Congress might actually do (the overreach here seems rather significant). But let me talk a bit more about some of the functions of the institution that the public might be less familiar with.
Of course, the LC’s collections are truly incredible. You’ll find tens of millions of digitized historic American newspaper pages in the public domain. You’ll find maps, prints and photographs, web archives, tools to remix free-to-use audio materials, Ralph Ellison’s personal library, Carl Sagan’s papers, Jerry Lewis’s own footage of his unfinished Holocaust film, The Day the Clown Cried — the list goes on.
The Library of Congress maintains standards for a host of formats, file types, and protocols used by libraries across the world. It does research into the lifespans of CDs and DVDs. It hosts scholars doing research. It experiments with digital transformation. The Library of Congress houses the National Library Service for the Blind and Print Disabled (NLS). The description on its webpage gives a sense of just how essential it is:
“The National Library Service for the Blind and Print Disabled (NLS) is a free braille and talking-book library service for people with temporary or permanent low vision, blindness, or a physical, perceptual, or reading disability that prevents them from using regular print materials. Through a national network of cooperating libraries, NLS circulates books and magazines in braille or audio formats, that are instantly downloadable to a personal device or delivered by mail free of charge.”
Under Dr. Hayden’s leadership, the Library of Congress has massively extended its footprint as America’s library as well — ranging from incredible exhibits such as the Treasures Gallery to public events like the National Book Festival, from scholarly lectures to resources for teachers using LC collections as primary source materials in the classroom.
And, of course, there is the Copyright Office. As this continues to play out, it increasingly seems like this was all a way to dismantle copyright and ransack the sum total of our nation’s intellectual efforts, all for the purposes of feeding generative AI — all so we can have our lives polluted, literally and figuratively.
I cannot stress enough just how incredible of an institution the Library of Congress is — a place with staff with unique expertise, a place leading the way for libraries and cultural heritage institutions across the world. Staff members are dear friends, and their work is essential.
The dismantling of the Library of Congress is an assault on knowledge itself.
Call your representatives and tell them this.
Ben - thanks for writing and posting this. Anyone who's spent five minutes in the LoC knows it's a rare gem - a temple to knowledge, scholarship, wonder - and that what's happening is desecration.