According to the Guinness Book of World Records, the American Library of Congress, established in 1800 in Washington, DC, is the world’s largest library. It houses a mind-boggling 29 million books stored in three buildings. It is not open to the public and is mainly meant for members of Congress, Supreme Court justices and other high-ranking officials, who can borrow books. It is the oldest federal cultural institution in the USA.
The World’s second largest library — and also the largest in Asia — is the National Library of China in Beijing, which boasts 23 million volumes. Ranked third with 20 million volumes is Russia’s St. Petersburg Academy of Science, founded in 1724 by Emperor Peter the Great. Surprisingly, the fourth largest is in a numerically small nation, Canada: The National Library and Archive, housed in Ottawa, with 18.8 million book titles. And the last on the distinguished list of the world’s most well-appointed libraries list is the German National Library, Frankfurt (estb.1912) which contains 18.5 million volumes.
Although not listed among the Big Five, the Harvard University Library which comprises 70 libraries — headed by its flagship Widener Library in Harvard Square — began with a collection of 400 books in John Harvard’s private library bequeathed to the university in 1638. “We have now accumulated nearly 17 million volumes and 400 million manuscripts and archival items catalogued into 45,000 distinct collections. We collect in more than 350 languages and have 12.8 million digital files, nearly 10 million photographs, online records of 3.4 million zoological specimens and endlessly rich special collections, including the largest library of Chinese works outside China and more Ukrainian titles than exist in Ukraine,” says Harvard University Library’s director Robert Darnton.