[Federal Register Volume 65, Number 80 (Tuesday, April 25, 2000)]
[Presidential Documents]
[Pages 24379-24380]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 00-10493]



[[Page 24377]]

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Part VII





The President





-----------------------------------------------------------------------



Proclamation 7296--Bicentennial of the Library of Congress
 
 
                         Presidential Documents 
 
 

  Federal Register / Vol. 65, No. 80 / Tuesday, April 25, 2000 / 
Presidential Documents  

 ___________________________________________________________________

 Title 3--
 The President

[[Page 24379]]

                Proclamation 7296 of April 21, 2000

                
Bicentennial of the Library of Congress

                By the President of the United States of America

                A Proclamation

                The Library of Congress is truly America's library. 
                Established on April 24, 1800, as the Congress prepared 
                to transfer the Federal Government from Philadelphia to 
                Washington, D.C., it is our country's oldest Federal 
                cultural institution. With Thomas Jefferson's private 
                library--acquired in 1815--as its core, the Library of 
                Congress has reflected from its earliest days the 
                breadth and variety of Jefferson's interests and his 
                love of democracy, expanding the store of human 
                knowledge, and helping ensure the free flow of ideas.

                Two centuries later, the Library's collections remain 
                diverse and expansive, containing materials on 
                virtually every subject, in virtually every medium. The 
                Library houses approximately 120 million items, 
                including more than 18 million books and some of the 
                world's largest collections of maps, manuscripts, 
                photographs, prints, newspapers, sound recordings, 
                motion pictures, and other research materials. The 
                Library also offers wide-ranging services to the 
                Government and the public, serving simultaneously as a 
                legislative library and the major research arm of the 
                United States Congress; the copyright agency of the 
                United States; the world's largest law library; and a 
                major center for preserving research materials and for 
                digitizing documents, manuscripts, maps, motion 
                pictures, and other specialized materials for use on 
                the Internet.

                Today, America's library is also the world's library. 
                An international resource of unparalleled reach, the 
                Library of Congress provides services through its 21 
                reading rooms in 3 buildings on Capitol Hill as well as 
                electronically through its web site, which registers 
                more than 4 million transactions each workday from 
                people around the globe. With its remarkable 
                collections and resources, the Library has truly 
                fulfilled its stated mission to make ``available and 
                useful . . . and to sustain and preserve a universal 
                collection of knowledge and creativity for future 
                generations.''

                Libraries have always enabled people, in the words of 
                James Madison, to ``arm themselves with the power which 
                knowledge gives.'' These words, inscribed at the 
                entrance of the James Madison Memorial Building of the 
                Library of Congress, are a tribute to the Library's 
                past and a sustaining goal as it embarks on its third 
                century.

                NOW, THEREFORE, I, WILLIAM J. CLINTON, President of the 
                United States of America, by virtue of the authority 
                vested in me by the Constitution and laws of the United 
                States, do hereby proclaim April 24, 2000, as a time to 
                commemorate the Bicentennial of the Library of 
                Congress. I call upon the people of the United States 
                to observe this occasion with appropriate programs, 
                ceremonies, and activities that celebrate the many 
                contributions the Library of Congress has made to 
                strengthening our democracy and our national culture.

[[Page 24380]]

                IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this 
                twenty-first day of April, in the year of our Lord two 
                thousand, and of the Independence of the United States 
                of America the two hundred and twenty-fourth.

                    (Presidential Sig.)

[FR Doc. 00-10493
Filed 4-24-00; 11:40 am]
Billing code 3195-01-P