List of the largest libraries in the United States
The largest public library in the United States—and the largest library in the world—is the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., which is the "de facto" national library of the United States. It holds more than 167 million items, including "more than 39 million books and other printed materials, 3.6 million recordings, 14.8 million photographs, 5.5 million maps, 8.1 million pieces of sheet music and 72 million manuscripts." Other than the Library of Congress, the largest public library in the United States is the New York Public Library, while the largest research library in the United States is the Harvard Library.
University of California, Berkeley Libraries
The University of California, Berkeley's 32 constituent and affiliated libraries together make it the fourth largest university library by number of volumes in the United States, surpassed only by the libraries of Harvard, Yale, and the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign. As of 2006, Berkeley's library system contains over 10 million volumes and maintains over 70,000 serial titles.
The libraries together cover over of land and compose one of the largest library complexes in the world. In 2003, the Association of Research Libraries ranked it as the top public and third overall university library in North America based on various statistical measures of quality.