World Libraries and Copyright: Library of Congress set to unveil plan to give public greater access to the record collection of 20th century

A plan by the Library of Congress will significantly expand the public’s access to the library’s musical and cinematic collection.

The plan would make it easier to access the collection, which is available to anyone for free, but copyright laws restrict viewing to the library’s reading rooms in Washington, D.C., and Culpeper, Va.

The library’s 45-acre vault in Culpeper includes bunkers housing the collection that contains nearly 100 miles of shelves stacked with about 6 millions items. The collection contains film reels, kinescopes, videotape, screenplays, vinyl discs, paper piano rolls, photographs and other materials.

In addition to copies of every published recording registered for protection in recent decades with the U.S. Copyright Office, the library has acquired personal collections from classical music giants such as Leonard Bernstein, composer Aaron Copland and pianist Wanda Landowska, as well as every 78 rpm disc recorded by jazz titan Jelly Roll Morton. Other recordings include such musical luminaries captured in their prime as Duke Ellington, Billie Holiday, Louis Armstrong, Benny Goodman, Judy Garland, Artie Shaw and Chick Webb.

The Library of Congress also possesses tens of thousands of lacquer discs from NBC Radio, including the network's complete archive of World War II coverage; documentarian Tony Schwartz's trove of audio recordings from the streets of New York.