Klarinet Archive - Posting 000049.txt from 1994/05

From: Chris Hill <Chris_Hill@-----.ORG>
Subj: Re: The Library of Congress does not have something?
Date: Tue, 3 May 1994 09:53:15 -0400

Now, my turn to reply to Leeson, who is this one time incorrect.

The Library of Congress is not required by law to, and does not, possess a
copy of everything published in the US. In fact, it keeps around half of
all the items sent to it in its role as administrator of the US copyright
laws, but makes judicious selections and lets the other half go to other
libraries, foreign libraries, or the great beyond. If they didn't weed
things out, the Library would have even more than its 535 miles of shelving
and tens of millions of items in the cataloguing backlog!

Chris Hill
(Formerly, senior specialist in science and technology policy,
Congressional Research Service, Library of Congress)