European and Polish collections at the Library of Congress in Washington .

Abstract

The Library of Congress is one of the largest libraries in the world. It has over 170 million units of collections written in 470 languages. A large part of them are related to European countries, including Poland. The article presents the structure of the European collection. The main categories of collected collections, factors activating their acquisition and examples of cimelia - old prints, manuscripts, new prints, but also maps, sheet music and atlases were indicated. The information presented was obtained from internal documents of the Library, printed guides, websites and as a result of studies and conversations conducted with employees of the Polish section as a part of a research internship project.