The Library of Congress The Library of Congress was founded in 1800 for the use of both Houses of Congress, The President and the Vice-President. In 1814 during the war with Great Britain, the enemy soldiers marched into Washington, set fire to the Capitol and destroyed the Library of Congress. After the end of hostilities, the Congress set about replacing the collection on a far grander scale than the original one. In 1815, Jefferson's private library was bought and it was the foundation of a new library- very different from the one that had been burned. In 1840, it started a wide exchange program with many libraries both at home and abroad. In 1871, the copyright act of 1846 was broadened to require the deposit of a copy of any printed matter in the Library of Congress and soon it became the largest library in the country. In 1897, the library moved to its present premises.
The 19th century closed with a rise of professionalism in education, the spread of free public libraries, the establishment and growth of colleges and universities throughout the country and increase of popular, cheap publications. The creation of libraries in every town and on every university campus called for organization and agreement on the science of librarianship. As a result, the American Library Association was established in 1876. Outstanding librarians tried to work out a basic set of rules by which all books would be identified and classified in a similar way so that anyone could quickly find what he was looking for. They wanted centralized cataloging and felt the need for a system of inter library loans by which the collections of many libraries could be mutually shared. Such a system was indeed established to support scholarship throughout the nation.

Identify the main idea of the text and comment on it in 25 words.