“Knowledge Will
forever Govern Ignorance”
—The Madison Memorial

137. Falling Books, a four-story bronze relief by sculptor Frank Eliscu, is installed above the Madison Building’s entrance.

The father of the US Constitution believed in the power of knowledge to uphold democracy—and he believed that books would preserve such knowledge. So, it was only fitting that the Library’s third building would be named for James Madison and serve as the only national memorial to the country’s fourth president.

In the late 1950s, crowded stacks in the once-spacious Annex building, plus an increasing collection growth rate, made it clear that a third major Library building would soon be needed. On August 13, 1958, the Architect of the Capitol submitted a detailed statement to the Joint Library Committee about a future structure. Congress appropriated planning funds for today’s James Madison Memorial Building in 1960. Ultimately, two separate Capitol Hill projects were successfully united in 1965 to bring this project to fruition: the creation of a James Madison Memorial and the construction of a third Library of Congress building. Construction was authorized the same year and work began.

However, life in a democracy can be complicated. On May 27, 1971, the US House Office Building Commission, chaired by Speaker of the House Carl Albert, recommended that no further action be taken on the appropriation of funds for a third Library building until a location of a fourth House of Representatives building had been determined. On June 4, 1971, in a debate in the House on the legislative branch appropriation for fiscal year 1972, the House rejected by a vote of 69 to 48 an amendment that would have deleted the recommended appropriation for the Library’s James Madison Memorial Building. Thus work finally moved ahead. The cornerstone was laid on March 8, 1974, and the building was dedicated on April 24, 1980—the Library’s 180th anniversary. The next year, on November 20, 1981, President Ronald Reagan dedicated Madison Memorial Hall on the building’s ground floor.

Modern in style, the Madison Building was designed by the firm of DeWitt, Poor & Shelton, Associated Architects. When it opened, it was one of the three largest public buildings in the Washington, DC, area (the others being the Pentagon and the FBI buildings), containing 2,100,000 square feet with 1,500,000 feet of assignable space. It houses both administrative offices and several special collection reading rooms and their related collections. Administrative offices include the Office of the Librarian, the Congressional Research Service, the Copyright Office, the Law Library, and National and International Outreach. The reading rooms are those for manuscripts, geography and maps, music, government publications and newspapers, and prints and photographs. There is a small reference area for motion pictures, broadcasting, and recorded sound, but the major reading rooms and the collections for these disciplines are part of the Packard Campus at Culpeper, Virginia.

Two quotations from James Madison adorn the marble exterior walls of the building, on either side of the main entrance on Independence Avenue. On the right side is a quote that speaks of liberty and learning being dependent on one another: “WHAT SPECTACLE CAN BE MORE EDIFYING OR MORE SEASONABLE, THAN THAT OF LIBERTY & LEARNING, EACH LEANING ON THE OTHER FOR THEIR MUTUAL AND SUREST SUPPORT?” On the left is a quote about knowledge and democracy: “KNOWLEDGE WILL FOREVER GOVERN IGNORANCE: AND A PEOPLE WHO MEAN TO BE THEIR OWN GOVERNORS, MUST ARM THEMSELVES WITH THE POWER WHICH KNOWLEDGE GIVES.” A four-story bronze relief, Falling Books by Frank Eliscu, dominates the main entrance. Off the entrance to the immediate left is the James Madison Memorial Hall, which features a heroic, 11-foot marble statue of Madison by Walter K. Hancock. The work shows Madison in 1783 when, at the age of 32, he developed a list of books “proper for the use of Congress.” His right hand holds a volume of the Encyclopedie Methodique, which was published in Paris between 1782 and 1832. Eight quotations from Madison concerning government and individual rights were incised by Constantine L. Seferlis in Madison Hall’s teakwood panels. Madison also is honored by a bronze medallion profile, hanging above the doors to the Manuscript Reading Room. A second medallion, this one showing Madison at his writing desk, is above the entrance to the Manuscript Division offices. Both medallions are by Robert Alexander Weinman.

On January 24, 1783, James Madison chaired a committee of delegates to the Continental Congress, which recommended a list of 250 titles for a library for the Congress. The motion to adopt the committee report was defeated primarily because of the “inconvenience of advancing even a few hundred pounds.” Madison was disappointed but understood. In later years he developed a personal library of several thousand volumes. He was more a user of books than a collector; his library was a workshop that provided the knowledge and information he needed as a legislator, pamphlet writer, presidential advisor, cabinet member, and, finally, president. He had hoped to give his library to the University of Virginia, but instead it had to be sold to settle claims on his estate. In 1980, with the dedication of the Madison Memorial Library, James Madison and his bookish heritage finally had a permanent home.

1979

March – In hearings in both the House and Senate, subcommittee members consider the Library’s request for $3.5 million to begin planning for the renovation of the Jefferson Building, once the new Madison Building opens.

138. During a visit to the Library on September 11, 1979, the Dalai Lama looked at rare Tibetan items in the collection.

November 19 – In a talk entitled “Gresham’s Law: Knowledge or Information?” presented at the White House Conference on Library and Information Services in Washington, DC, Librarian Boorstin emphasizes the distinction between knowledge and information, the importance of the distinction, and the dangers to libraries and other institutions that fail to recognize it.

1980

April 24 – The James Madison Memorial Building is dedicated. Senator Harry F. Byrd of Virginia speaks about “James Madison—The Man,” and Senator Claiborne Pell, chairman of the Joint Library Committee, and Vice Chairman Lucien N. Nedzi address the topic “The Library of Congress—In Service to Congress and the People.”

139. Walter Hancock carved the heroic 11-foot-tall white Carrara marble statue of James Madison at the end of Madison Memorial Hall.