Prof. Boerner's Explorations

by Gerald Boerner

  

We continue our series on the possible candidates for the nomination to replace Justice John Paul Stevens when he retires this June. Today’s candidate is Janet Napolitano who is currently Secretary for Homeland Security and formerly was the governor of Arizona.

Some critics feel that we have had too many Ivy Leaguers on the court, especially from the Harvard and Yale Law Schools. In addition, it is said that Obama is determined “…to put somebody who’s actually run for elective office on the Supreme Court.” Napolitano would meet these criteria. But the race is still open and up for grabs.  GLB

    

“Fidelity is the sister of justice.”
— Horace

“A society that has more justice is a society that needs less charity.”
— Ralph Nader

“Justice is my being allowed to do whatever I like. Injustice is whatever prevents my doing so..”
— Samuel Butler

“Justice will not come to Athens until those who are not injured are as indignant as those who are injured.”
— Thurcydides

“Next in importance to freedom and justice is popular education, without which neither freedom nor justice can be permanently maintained.”
— James A. Garfield

“Justice Ginsburg is a very competent justice, and it is a joy to have her on the court, but particularly for me it is a pleasure to have a second woman on the court.”
— Sandra Day O’Connor

“Justice is an unassailable fortress, built on the brow of a mountain which cannot be overthrown by the violence of torrents, nor demolished by the force of armies.”
— Joseph Addison

“I cannot lead you into battle. I do not give you laws or administer justice but I can do something else – I can give my heart and my devotion to these old islands and to all the peoples of our brotherhood of nations.”
— Queen Elizabeth II

  

Supreme Court Candidates: Janet Napolitano

President Barack Obama has made one appointment to the Supreme Court of the United States, that of Judge Sonia Sotomayor to fill the vacancy created by the retirement of Associate Justice David H. Souter. Sotomayor was confirmed by the United States Senate on August 6, 2009. He will additionally have the opportunity to fill the vacancy created by John Paul Stevens, who has announced his intention to retire at the end of the court’s term in June 2010. Speculation has also focused on the potential retirement of 77-year-old Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who has been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.

Court demographics

Demographic considerations have played into the appointment of Supreme Court justices since the institution was established. Starting in the twentieth century, these concerns shifted from geographic representation to issues of gender and ethnicity.

Prior to the 2008 presidential election, many court watchers suggested that the next president would be under significant pressure to appoint another woman or ethnic minority to the court. The case for naming more women was particularly widespread given the recent retirement of Sandra Day O’Connor and the rapidly changing demographics of the legal community, with women now accounting for about a fifth of all law partners and law school deans, a quarter of the federal bench, and nearly half of all law school graduates. Shortly before the election, for example, NPR reported, "Most observers of the Supreme Court agree about one thing: The next nominee is likely to be a woman". Furthermore, after Obama’s presidential election victory, Hispanic legal interests groups such as the Hispanic National Bar Association began urging Obama to nominate a Hispanic justice.

Given the relative youth of the most recent Republican appointments, it was also noted that Democrats had, "a strong incentive to pick younger justices this time around". Age proved to be an important consideration for Obama, who was "looking for a justice who will be an intellectual force on the court for many years to come". As a result, Obama did not seriously consider candidates such as Jose Cabranes, Amalya Kearse, Diana Gribbon Motz, David Tatel, and Laurence Tribe, all of whom he respected but were older than 65 when Obama was looking to replace David Souter.

Introducing Janet Napolitano

Janet Napolitano (Born: 1957) is the third and current United States Secretary of Homeland Security, serving within the administration of President Barack Obama. A member of the Democratic Party, she was the 21st Governor of Arizona from 2003 to 2009. She was Arizona’s third female governor, and the first woman to win re-election. Prior to her election as governor, she served as Attorney General of Arizona from 1999 to 2002.

On December 1, 2008, President-elect Obama announced his intention to nominate Napolitano as United States Secretary of Homeland Security. She was sworn into office on January 21, 2009, after being confirmed by the United States Senate. She is the first woman to serve in that office.

Early life

Janet Napolitano was born on November 29, 1957 in New York City, the daughter of Jane Marie (née Winer) and Leonard Michael Napolitano, who was the Dean of the University of New Mexico School of Medicine. She is of Italian heritage and is a Methodist. She was the oldest of three children; she has a younger brother (Leonard Jr.) and a sister (Nancy). She was raised in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and Albuquerque, New Mexico, where she graduated from Sandia High School in Albuquerque in 1975 and was voted Most Likely to Succeed. She graduated from Santa Clara University in Santa Clara, California, where she won a Truman Scholarship, and was valedictorian. She then received her Juris Doctor (J.D.) from the University of Virginia School of Law. After law school she served as a law clerk for Judge Mary M. Schroeder of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, and then joined Schroeder’s former firm, the Phoenix law firm Lewis and Roca.

Political career

In 1991, while a partner with the private Phoenix law firm Lewis and Roca LLP, Napolitano served as an attorney for Anita Hill. Anita Hill testified in the U.S. Senate that then U.S. Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas had sexually harassed her ten years earlier when she was his subordinate at the federal EEOC.

In 1993, Napolitano was appointed by President Bill Clinton as United States Attorney for the District of Arizona. As U.S. Attorney, she was involved in the investigation of Michael Fortier of Kingman, Arizona, in connection to the Oklahoma City bombing. She ran for and won the position of Arizona Attorney General in 1998. Her tenure focused on consumer protection issues and improving general law enforcement.

While still serving as attorney general, she spoke at the 2000 Democratic National Convention just three weeks after having a mastectomy. Napolitano recalls that the pain was so unbearable that she couldn’t stand up. "Work and family helped me focus on other things while I battled the cancer," says Napolitano. "I am very grateful for all the support I had from family, friends and Arizonans."

Governor

She narrowly won the Arizona gubernatorial election of 2002 with 46 percent of the vote, succeeding Republican Jane Dee Hull and defeating her Republican opponent, former congressman Matt Salmon, who received 45 percent of the vote. She was Arizona’s third female governor and the first woman in the United States to be elected governor to succeed another elected female governor. She spoke at the 2004 Democratic Convention after some initially considered her to be a possible running mate for presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry in the 2004 presidential election but Kerry selected Sen. John Edwards instead. In November 2005, Time magazine named her one of the five best governors in the U.S.

Napolitano speaks
during the second day of the
2008 Democratic National Convention
in Denver, Colorado.

As Governor, Napolitano set records for total number of vetoes issued. In 2005, she set a single session record of 58 vetoes, breaking Jane Dee Hull’s 2001 record of 28. This was followed in June 2006, less than four years into her term, when she issued her 115th veto and set the all-time record for vetoes by an Arizona governor. The previous record of 114 vetoes was set by Bruce Babbitt during his nine years in office. By the time she left office, the governor had issued 180 vetoes.

In November 2006, Napolitano won the gubernatorial election of 2006, defeating the Republican challenger, Len Munsil, by a nearly 2–1 ratio and becoming the first woman to be re-elected to that office. Arizona’s constitution provides a two-consecutive-term term limit for its governors, meaning Napolitano would have been barred from seeking a third term in office in 2010.

In January 2006, she won the Woodrow Wilson Award for Public Service. She was a member of the Democratic Governors Association Executive Committee. Furthermore, she has also served previously as Chair of the Western Governors Association, and the National Governors Association. She served as NGA Chair from 2006 to 2007, and was the first female governor and first governor of Arizona ever to serve in that position.

Secretary of Homeland Security

In February 2006, Napolitano was named by The White House Project as one of "8 in ’08", a group of eight female politicians who could possibly run for president in 2008. On January 11, 2008, Napolitano endorsed then Illinois Senator Barack Obama as the Democratic nominee for president. On November 5, 2008, Napolitano was named to the advisory board of the Obama-Biden Transition Project. On December 1, 2008, Barack Obama introduced Napolitano as his nominee for United States Secretary of Homeland Security. On January 20, 2009, Napolitano was confirmed, becoming the first woman appointed Secretary in the relatively new department. Arizona Secretary of State Jan Brewer became the governor of Arizona, as the state does not have a lieutenant governor.

Napolitano announcing a
border security task force.

In March 2009, Napolitano told the German news site "Spiegel Online" that while she presumes there is always a threat from terrorism: "I referred to ‘man-caused’ disasters. That is perhaps only a nuance, but it demonstrates that we want to move away from the politics of fear toward a policy of being prepared for all risks that can occur." In April 2009 Napolitano, trying to defend her plans to thicken US-Canadian border security, claimed incorrectly that September 11 attack perpetrators entered the United States from Canada. Her comments provoked an angry response from the Canadian ambassador, media, and public.

Napolitano discussing security at a
Super Bowl XLIV press conference.
The Super Bowl is designated as a
National Special Security Event by
Homeland Security.

In response to criticism, she later said, "Nonetheless, to the extent that terrorists have come into our country or suspected or known terrorists have entered our country across a border, it’s been across the Canadian border. There are real issues there". Though there has only been one case, that of Ahmed Ressam an Algerian citizen who was in Canada illegally. According to the Canadian Security Intelligence Service CSIS he was "under surveillance" the entire time.

Right-Wing Extremism Memo Controversy

Napolitano was the subject of controversy after a Department of Homeland Security threat assessment report initiated during the administration of George W. Bush, entitled "Rightwing [sic] Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment," was made public in April 2009. The report suggested several factors, including the election of the first black or mixed race President in the person of Barack Obama, perceived future gun control measures, illegal immigration, the economic downturn beginning in 2008, the abortion controversy, and disgruntled military veterans’ possible vulnerability to recruitment efforts by extremist groups as potential risk factors regarding right-wing extremism recruitment.

On April 16, 2009, the Thomas More Law Center, a conservative Christian public interest law firm based in Ann Arbor, Michigan, filed suit against DHS on behalf of controversial radio talk show host and political commentator Michael Savage, executive director of the Center for Bio-Ethical Reform Gregg Cunningham, and Iraqi War Marine veteran Kevin Murray. Savage stated that the document "encourages law enforcement officers throughout the nation to target and report citizens to federal officials as suspicious right-wing extremists and potential terrorists because of their political beliefs."

Napolitano made multiple apologies for any offense veterans groups had taken at the reference to veterans in the assessment, and promised to meet with those groups to discuss the issue. The Department of Homeland Security admitted a "breakdown in an internal process" by ignoring objections by the Office of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties to an unnamed portion of the document.

While the American Legion reportedly criticized the assessment, Glen M. Gardner Jr., the national commander of the 2.2 million-member Veterans of Foreign Wars, defended it generally, saying it "should have been worded differently" but served a vital purpose. "A government that does not assess internal and external security threats would be negligent of a critical public responsibility," he said in a statement.

"The System Worked" Controversy

Sec. Napolitano was criticized for stating in an interview with CNN’s Candy Crowley that, "the system worked" with regard to an attempted terrorist attack on Northwest Airlines Flight 253 approaching Detroit, Michigan on Christmas Day 2009. She later went on NBC’s Today Show with host Matt Lauer and stated that the security system had indeed failed.

The statement by Napolitano to Crowley that received criticism was as follows:

What we are focused on is making sure that the air environment remains safe, that people are confident when they travel. And one thing I’d like to point out is that the system worked. Everybody played an important role here. The passengers and crew of the flight took appropriate action. Within literally an hour to 90 minutes of the incident occurring, all 128 flights in the air had been notified to take some special measures in light of what had occurred on the Northwest Airlines flight. We instituted new measures on the ground and at screening areas, both here in the United States and in Europe, where this flight originated. So the whole process of making sure that we respond properly, correctly and effectively went very smoothly.

Supreme Court Candidate

Secretary Napolitano is reportedly on the short list of candidates to replace retiring Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens.

In the Press…

Bob Adelmann, in his “Will Obama Nominate Napolitano for the Supreme Court?” article in New American makes several useful observations about the confirmation hearing process. (See below for the link to the full article in the References section.)

Evidence is mounting that Obama will have another opportunity to appoint a justice to the Supreme Court when Justice Stevens retires next summer.

Justice John Paul Stevens, age 89, raised some eyebrows when he hired just one law clerk to his staff for the current term. Full-time Justices can hire as many as six clerks, and retired Justices usually hire two.

Speculation as to who might be nominated to replace Stevens was fueled by NBC’s Chuck Todd’s suggestion (to Laura Ingraham on her radio show) that Janet Napolitano would soon resign her post as Secretary of Homeland Security in order to be available for the nomination:

Personally, [Obama] likes her probably more than any other cabinet secretary outside of [Robert] Gates on a personal comfort zone. I think he’s determined to put somebody who’s actually run for elective office on the Supreme Court. You know, we’re in the first Supreme Court, I think in a hundred years, that hasn’t had somebody with elective office experience at any point in time. He’s talked about wanting that as a criteria…. He’s a big fan of hers.

President Obama has made himself abundantly clear about his position on appointing justices to the Supreme Court. As a Senator, Obama expounded on his “empathy” standard to explain why he voted against Justice John Roberts as Chief Justice:

While adherence to legal precedent and rules of statutory or constitutional construction will dispose of 95 percent of the cases that come before a court, so that both a Scalia and a Ginsburg will arrive at the same place most of the time on those 95 percent of the cases — what matters on the Supreme Court is those 5 percent of cases that are truly difficult. In those cases, adherence to precedent and rules of construction and interpretation will only get you through the 25th mile of the marathon. That last mile can only be determined on the basis of one’s deepest values, one’s core concerns, one’s broader perspectives on how the world works, and the depth and breadth of one’s empathy…. In those difficult cases, the critical ingredient is supplied by what is in the judge’s heart.

Instead of looking to original intent (see this author’s article on this), Obama wants his justices instead to be “somebody who’s got the heart — the empathy — to recognize what it’s like to be a young teenage mom. The empathy to understand what it’s like to be poor or African-American or gay or disabled or old — and that’s the criteria by which I’ll be selecting my judges.”

In a recent New York Times article, Neil Lewis pointed out that Obama "would be able to — and fellow Democrats certainly expect him to — reverse or even undo the current conservative dominance of the courts.” This position flies in the face of what Americans want from the Supreme Court. A recent Rasmussen Report indicates that 36 percent of likely voters consider the Supreme Court to be “too liberal”, while only 20 percent consider it to be “too conservative.” And 70 percent of those polled think that the Supreme Court should “make decisions based on what’s written in the Constitution and legal precedents,” versus 25 percent who think that it should “be guided mostly by a sense of fairness and justice.”

How well would Janet Napolitano measure up to Obama’s “empathy” standard?

Putting aside her immediate difficulties as Secretary of Homeland Security, she was busy as Governor of Arizona voting against restrictions on eminent domain that would have kept local governments from taking private property from some owners and giving it to others, as well as voting against the Second Amendment in two important bills that had already passed the state legislature.

She also voted against several pro-life measures, including bans on partial-birth abortion and taxpayer funding of abortion.

If Justice Stevens retires, and if Napolitano is appointed to replace him, will that tip the scales of justice? According to UPI, probably not.

Named to the High Court by President Gerald Ford in 1975 and expected to be a conservative, Justice Stevens became more liberal over time, and now is considered to be “the liberal lion of the Supreme Court.” If Napolitano did replace Stevens, little if anything would "change."

     

References:

Background and biographical information is from Wikipedia articles on:

Wikipedia: Janet Napolitano… 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Janet_Napolitano

Wikipedia: Barak Obama Supreme Court Candidates…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barack_Obama_Supreme_Court_candidates

Other Web Sites:

New American: “Will Obama Nominate Napolitano for the Supreme Court?”…
http://www.thenewamerican.com/index.php/usnews/politics/2643-will-obama-nominate-napolitano-for-the-supreme-court

Brainy Quote: Justice Quotes…
http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/justice_9.html

by Gerald Boerner

  

The Library of Congress is more than a building that holds a collection of books, it is a repository for many of our nations most valuable documents. The original of the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution is there. There is also one of the few remaining vellum Gutenberg Bibles.

This institution has undergone rich and poor times. It has been resilient enough to bounce back after bad times and shine in the good times. It is a experience that all Americans should try to complete at some time in their lives.  GLB

    

“My boyfriend thinks I lost my true calling to be a librarian.”
— Paulina Porizkova

“I am not a librarian of my own work. It’s a good thing not to be too involved with what you have done.”
— Mick Jagger

“I have a brother younger than me. My mother was a librarian, so from her, I got the taste to read.”
— Shimon Peres

“There are distinct duties of a poet laureate. I plan a reading series at the Library of Congress and advise the librarian. The rest is how I want to promote poetry.”
— Rita Dove

“I’m of a fearsome mind to throw my arms around every living librarian who crosses my path, on behalf of the souls they never knew they saved.”
— Barbara Kingsolver

“A collection of good books, with a soul to it in the shape of a librarian, becomes a vitalized power among the impulses by which the world goes on to improvement.”
— Justin Winsor

“Being a librarian certainly helped me with my writing because it made me even more of a reader, and I was always an enthusiastic reader. Writing and reading seem to me to be different aspects of a single imaginative act.”
— Margaret Mahy

“A book is a fragile creature, it suffers the wear of time, it fears rodents, the elements and clumsy hands. so the librarian protects the books not only against mankind but also against nature and devotes his life to this war with the forces of oblivion.”
— Umberto Eco

The Library of Congress

The Library of Congress is the research library of the United States Congress and is the oldest federal cultural institution in the United States. Located in three buildings in Washington, D.C., it is the largest library in the world by shelf space and holds the largest number of books. The head of the Library is the Librarian of Congress, currently James H. Billington.

The Library of Congress was established by Congress in 1800, and was housed in the United States Capitol for most of the 19th century. After much of the original collection had been destroyed during the War of 1812, Thomas Jefferson sold 6487 books, his entire personal collection, to the library in 1815. After a period of decline during the mid-19th century the Library of Congress began to grow rapidly in both size and importance after the American Civil War, culminating in the construction of a separate library building and the transference of all copyright deposit holdings to the Library. During the rapid expansion of the 20th century the Library of Congress assumed a preeminent public role, becoming a “library of last resort” and expanding its mission for the benefit of scholars and the American people.

The Library’s primary mission is researching inquiries made by members of Congress through the Congressional Research Service; although it is open to the public, only legislators, Supreme Court justices and other high-ranking government officials may check out books. Through the United States Copyright Office, the Library of Congress also receives copies of every book, pamphlet, map, print, and piece of music registered in the United States. As the de facto national library, the Library of Congress promotes literacy and American literature through projects such as the American Folklife Center, American Memory, Center for the Book and Poet Laureate.

History

Construction of the
Thomas Jefferson Building,
from July 8, 1888 to
May 15, 1894.

Weakening (1851–1865)

The antebellum period was difficult for the Library. During the 1850s the Smithsonian Institution’s librarian Charles Coffin Jewett aggressively tried to move that organization towards becoming the United States’ national library. His efforts were blocked by the Smithsonian’s Secretary Joseph Henry, who advocated a focus on scientific research and publication and favored the Library of Congress’ development into the national library. Henry’s dismissal of Jewett in July 1854 ended the Smithsonian’s attempts to become the national library, and in 1866 Henry transferred the Smithsonian’s forty thousand-volume library to the Library of Congress.

On December 24, 1851 the largest fire in the Library’s history destroyed 35,000 books, about two-thirds of the Library’s 55,000 book collection, including two-thirds of Jefferson’s original donation.^[4] Congress in 1852 quickly appropriated $168,700 to replace the lost books but not for the acquisition of new materials. This marked the start of a conservative period in the Library’s administration under Librarian John Silva Meehan and Joint Committee Chairman James A. Pearce, who worked to restrict the Library’s activities. In 1857, Congress transferred the Library’s public document distribution activities to the Department of the Interior and its international book exchange program to the Department of State. The centralization of copyright offices into the United States Patent Office in 1859 ended the Library’s thirteen year role as a depository of all copyrighted books and pamphlets. Abraham Lincoln’s political appointment of John G. Stephenson as Librarian of Congress in 1861 further weakened the Library; Stephenson’s focus was on non-library affairs, including service as a volunteer aide-de-camp at the battles of Chancellorsville and Gettysburg during the American Civil War. By the conclusion of the war, the Library of Congress had a staff of seven for a collection of eighty thousand volumes.

Spofford’s expansion (1865–1897)

The Library of Congress
inside the U.S. Capitol
Building c. 1890

The Library of Congress reasserted itself during the latter half of the 19th century under Librarian Ainsworth Rand Spofford, who directed the Library from 1865 to 1897. Aided by an overall expansion of the federal government and a favorable political climate, Spofford built broad bipartisan support for the Library as a national library and a legislative resource, began comprehensively collecting Americana and American literature, and led the construction of a new building to house the Library, and transformed the Librarian of Congress position into one of strength and independence. Between 1865 and 1870, Congress appropriated funds for the construction of the Thomas Jefferson Building, placed all copyright registration and deposit activities under the Library’s control, and restored the Library’s international book exchange. The Library also acquired the vast libraries of both the Smithsonian and historian Peter Force, strengthening its scientific and Americana collections significantly. By 1876, the Library of Congress had 300,000 volumes and was tied with Boston Public Library as the nation’s largest library. When the Library moved from the Capitol building to its new headquarters in 1897, it had over 840,000 volumes, 40% of which had been acquired through copyright deposit.

Some of the Library of Congress’
holdings awaiting shelving
inside the newly opened
Thomas Jefferson Building

A year before the Library’s move to its new location, the Joint Library Committee held a session of hearings to assess the condition of the Library and plan for its future growth and possible reorganization. Spofford and six experts sent by the American Library Association, including future Librarian of Congress Herbert Putnam and Melvil Dewey of the New York State Library, testified before the committee that the Library should continue its expansion towards becoming a true national library. Based on the hearings and with the assistance of Senators Justin Morrill of Vermont and Daniel Voorhees of Indiana, Congress more than doubled the Library’s staff from 42 to 108 and established new administrative units for all aspects of the Library’s collection. Congress also strengthened the office of Librarian of Congress to govern the Library and make staff appointments, as well as requiring Senate approval for presidential appointees to the position.

Post-reorganization (1897–1939)

Main Library of Congress building
at the start of the 20th century

The Library of Congress, spurred by the 1897 reorganization, began to grow and develop more rapidly. Spofford’s successor John Russell Young, though only in office for two years, overhauled the Library’s bureaucracy, used his connections as a former diplomat to acquire more materials from around the world, and established the Library’s first assistance programs for the blind and physically disabled. Young’s successor Herbert Putnam held the office for forty years from 1899 to 1939, entering into the position two years before the Library became the first in the United States to hold one million volumes. Putnam focused his efforts on making the Library more accessible and useful for the public and for other libraries. He instituted the interlibrary loan service, transforming the Library of Congress into what he referred to as a “library of last resort”. Putnam also expanded Library access to “scientific investigators and duly qualified individuals” and began publishing primary sources for the benefit of scholars.

Putnam’s tenure also saw increasing diversity in the Library’s acquisitions. In 1903 he persuaded President Theodore Roosevelt to transfer by executive order the papers of the Founding Fathers from the State Department to the Library of Congress. Putnam expanded foreign acquisitions as well, including the 1904 purchase of a four-thousand volume library of Indica, the 1906 purchase of G. V. Yudin’s eighty-thousand volume Russian library, the 1908 Schatz collection of early opera librettos, and the early 1930s purchase of the Russian Imperial Collection, consisting of 2,600 volumes from the library of the Romanov family on a variety of topics. Collections of Hebraica and Chinese and Japanese works were also acquired. Congress even took the initiative to acquire materials for the Library in one occasion, when in 1929 Congressman Ross Collins of Mississippi successfully proposed the $1.5 million purchase of Otto Vollbehr’s collection of incunabula, including one of four remaining perfect vellum copies of the Gutenberg Bible.

A copy of the Gutenberg Bible
on display at the Library
of Congress

In 1914 Putnam established the Legislative Reference Service as a separative administrative unit of the Library. Based in the Progressive era’s philosophy of science as a problem-solver, and modeled after successful research branches of state legislatures, the LRS would provide informed answers to Congressional research inquiries on almost any topic. In 1925 Congress passed an act allowing the Library of Congress to establish a trust fund board to accept donations and endowments, giving the Library a role as a patron of the arts. The Library received the donations and endowments of prominent individuals such as John D. Rockefeller, James B. Wilbur and Archer M. Huntington. Gertrude Clarke Whittall donated five Stradivarius violins to the Library and Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge’s donations paid for a concert hall within the Library of Congress building and the establishment of an honorarium for the Music Division. A number of chairs and consultantships were established from the donations, the most well-known of which is the Poet Laureate Consultant.

The Library’s expansion eventually filled the Library’s Main Building despite shelving expansions in 1910 and 1927, forcing the Library to expand into a new structure. Congress acquired nearby land in 1928 and approved construction of the Annex Building (later the John Adams Building) in 1930. Although delayed during the Depression years, it was completed in 1938 and opened to the public in 1939.

Modern history (1939–)

Erotica, mural painting
by George Randolph Barse
(1861–1938) in the
Library of Congress

 

When Putnam retired in 1939, President Franklin D. Roosevelt appointed Archibald MacLeish as his successor. Occupying the post from 1939 to 1944 during the height of World War II, MacLeish became the most visible Librarian of Congress in the Library’s history. MacLeish encouraged librarians to oppose totalitarianism on behalf of democracy; dedicated the South Reading Room of the Adams Building to Thomas Jefferson, commissioning artist Ezra Winter to paint four themed murals for the room; and established a “democracy alcove” in the Main Reading Room of the Jefferson Building for important documents such as the Declaration, Constitution and Federalist Papers. Even the Library of Congress assisted during the war effort, ranging from the storage of the Declaration of Independence and the United States Constitution in Fort Knox for safekeeping to researching weather data on the Himalayas for Air Force pilots. MacLeish resigned in 1944 to become Assistant Secretary of State, and President Harry Truman appointed Luther H. Evans as Librarian of Congress. Evans, who served until 1953, expanded the Library’s acquisitions, cataloging and bibliographic services as much as the fiscal-minded Congress would allow, but his primary achievement was the creation of Library of Congress Missions around the world. Missions played a variety of roles in the postwar world: the mission in San Francisco assisted participants in the meeting that established the United Nations, the mission in Europe acquired European publications for the Library of Congress and other American libraries, and the mission in Japan aided in the creation of the National Diet Library.

Elihu Vedder’s
Minerva of Peace mosaic

Evans’ successor L. Quincy Mumford took over in 1953. Mumford’s tenure, lasting until 1974, saw the initiation of the construction of the James Madison Memorial Building, the third Library of Congress building. Mumford directed the Library during a period of increased educational spending, the windfall of which allowed the Library to devote energies towards establishing new acquisition centers abroad, including in Cairo and New Delhi. In 1967 the Library began experimenting with book preservation techniques through a Preservation Office, which grew to become the largest library research and conservation effort in the United States. Mumford’s administration also saw the last major public debate about the Library of Congress’ role as both a legislative library and a national library. A 1962 memorandum by Douglas Bryant of the Harvard University Library, compiled at the request of Joint Library Committee chairman Claiborne Pell, proposed a number of institutional reforms, including expansion of national activities and services and various organizational changes, all of which would shift the Library more towards its national role over its legislative role. Bryant even suggested possibly changing the name of the Library of Congress, which was rebuked by Mumford as “unspeakable violence to tradition”. Debate continued within the library community until the Legislative Reorganization Act of 1970 shifted the Library back towards its legislative roles, placing greater focus on research for Congress and congressional committees and renaming the Legislative Reference Service to the Congressional Research Service.

After Mumford retired in 1974, Gerald Ford appointed Daniel J. Boorstin as Librarian. Boorstin’s first challenge was the move to the new Madison Building, which took place between 1980 and 1982. The move released pressures on staff and shelf space, allowing Boorstin to focus on other areas of Library administration such as acquisitions and collections. Taking advantage of steady budgetary growth, from $116 million in 1975 to over $250 million by 1987, Boorstin actively participated in enhancing ties with scholars, authors, publishers, cultural leaders, and the business community. His active and prolific role changed the post of Librarian of Congress so that by the time he retired in 1987, the New York Times called it “perhaps the leading intellectual public position in the nation.” Ronald Reagan appointed James H. Billington as the thirteenth Librarian of Congress in 1987, a post he holds as of 2009. Billington took advantage of new technological advancements and the Internet to link the Library to educational institutions around the country in 1991. The end of the Cold War also enabled the Library to develop relationships with newly open Eastern European nations, helping them to establish parliamentary libraries of their own.

In the mid-1990s, under Billington’s leadership, the Library of Congress began to pursue the development of what it called a “National Digital Library,” part of an overall strategic direction that has been somewhat controversial within the library profession. In late November 2005, the Library announced intentions to launch the World Digital Library, digitally preserving books and other objects from all world cultures. In April 2010, it announced plans to archive all public communication on Twitter, including all communication since Twitter’s launch in March 2006.

Holdings

Library of Congress, Thomas Jefferson Building

The collections of the Library of Congress include more than 32 million cataloged books and other print materials in 470 languages; more than 61 million manuscripts; the largest rare book collection in North America, including the rough draft of the Declaration of Independence, a Gutenberg Bible (one of only four perfect vellum copies known to exist); over 1 million US government publications; 1 million issues of world newspapers spanning the past three centuries; 33,000 bound newspaper volumes; 500,000 microfilm reels; over 6,000 comic book titles; films; 4.8 million maps; sheet music; 2.7 million sound recordings; more than 13.7 million prints and photographic images including fine and popular art pieces and architectural drawings; the Betts Stradivarius; and the Cassavetti Stradivarius.

The Library developed a system of book classification called Library of Congress Classification (LCC), which is used by most US research and university libraries, although most public libraries continue to use the Dewey decimal system.

The Library serves as a legal repository for copyright protection and copyright registration, and as the base for the United States Copyright Office. Regardless of whether they register their copyright, all publishers are required to submit two complete copies of their published works to the Library if requested—this requirement is known as mandatory deposit. Parties wishing not to publish, need only submit one copy of their work. Nearly 22,000 new items published in the U.S. arrive every business day at the Library. Contrary to popular belief, however, the Library does not retain all of these works in its permanent collection, although it does add an average of 10,000 items per day. Rejected items are used in trades with other libraries around the world, distributed to federal agencies, or donated to schools, communities, and other organizations within the United States. As is true of many similar libraries, the Library of Congress retains copies of every publication in the English language that is deemed significant.

The Library of Congress states that its collection fills about 650 miles (1,046 km), while the British Library reports about 388 miles (625 km) of shelves. The Library of Congress holds about 130 million items with 29 million books against approximately 150 million items with 25 million books for the British Library.

The Library of Congress is usually quoted as occupying, if digitized and stored as plain text, 20 terabytes of information (10 in other quotations), based on the amount of cataloged books in the Library of Congress classification system (20 million in 2007) and estimating one megabyte of text per book. This leads many people to conclude that 20 terabytes is equivalent to the entire holdings of the Library, but this is misleading because the Library contains many items in addition to books, such as manuscripts, photographs, maps, and sound recordings, that, if digitized, would amount to much more information. The Library currently has no plans for systematic digitization of any significant portion of its books.

The Library makes millions of digital objects, comprising tens of terabytes, available at its American Memory site. American Memory is a source for public domain image resources, as well as audio, video, and archived Web content. Nearly all of the lists of holdings, the catalogs of the library, can be consulted directly on its web site. Librarians all over the world consult these catalogs, through the Web or through other media better suited to their needs, when they need to catalog for their collection a book published in the United States. They use the Library of Congress Control Number to make sure of the exact identity of the book.

The Library of Congress also provides an online archive of the proceedings of the U.S. Congress at THOMAS, including bill text, Congressional Record text, bill summary and status, the Congressional Record Index, and the United States Constitution.

The Library also administers the National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped, a talking and braille library program provided to more than 766,000 Americans.

References

Other Events on this Day:

• In 1704…
  The Boston News-Letter, the first continuously published newspaper in British North America, is published.
• In 1800…
  The Library of Congress is established.
• In 1877…
  President Rutherford B. Hayes withdraws federal troops from New Orleans, ending post-Civil War military occupation of the South.
• In 1898…
  Spain declares war on the United States in what becomes known as the Spanish-American War.
• In 1962…
  The Massachusetts Institute of Technology achieves the first coast-to-coast satellite relay of a TV signal.
• In 1980…
  An attempt to rescue American hostages in Iran fails; eight soldiers die when a helicopter and transport plane collide in the desert.

Dates and events based on:

William J. Bennett and John Cribb, (2008) The American Patriot’s Almanac Daily Readings on America. (Kindle Edition)

Background information is from Wikipedia articles on:

Wikipedia: Library of Congress… 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Library_of_Congress

Brainy Quotes: Librarian Quotes…
http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/librarian.html