Library of Congress

Lonely Planet review

The world's largest library, housed in three different buildings, contains approximately 120 million items, including 22 million books plus manuscripts, maps, photographs, films and prints. But don't expect to see many books: Most are shelved on more than 500 miles of closed library stacks in the three buildings. The Library is nonetheless fascinating; The visitors center, in the Jefferson Building, shows a brief film, and there are guided tours.

In the historic 1897 Jefferson Building you can wander around the spectacular Great Hall, ornate with stained glass and marble, and scope out the three-story Main Reading Room (who can get any work done in here?). On the 1st floor, American Treasures displays historical documents ranging from Alexander Graham Bell's lab book entry to clips of Groucho Marx on the Johnny Carson Show . Both the Jefferson and the Madison Buildings house exhibits, including cool pop-culture in the Bob Hope Gallery of American Entertainment.

Anyone over the age of 18 carrying photo ID can use the library, and more than a million people do so each year. The Main Reading Room is in the Jefferson building, but it is just one of 22 reading rooms To find what you're looking for check out the info desks and touch-screen computers scattered about the Jefferson and Madison buildings. The Library of Congress is a research library, meaning you can't check the books out, but you can read away inside its confines.

The National Digital Library is an online service that allows you to access papers, maps and musical scores in machine-readable format (the desks in the Main Reading Room are wired for laptops). Other tasty morsels available online include major exhibitions, prints, photographs, political speeches and films.

The Madison Building also hosts concerts and screens classic films in the Mary Pickford Theater .