Washington, D.C., is the site of the world's largest library, the Library of Congress, with a 1998 collection of more than 80 million items, including 26 million books and pamphlets. The Library, which is also the cataloging and bibliographic center for libraries throughout the US, has on permanent display a 1455 Gutenberg Bible, Thomas Jefferson's first draft of the Declaration of Independence, and Abraham Lincoln's first two drafts of the Gettysburg Address. Also in its permanent collection are the oldest known existing film (Thomas Edison's The Sneeze, lasting three seconds), maps believed to date from the Lewis and Clark expedition, original musical scores by Charles Ives, and huge libraries of Russian and Chinese texts. The Folger Shakespeare Library contains not only rare Renaissance manuscripts but also a full-size re-creation of an Elizabethan theater. The District's own public library system has a main library and 26 branches—including the Martin Luther King Memorial Library—with 2,863,296 volumes in 1998.
The District of Columbia was home to at least 93 museums in 2000. The Smithsonian Institution—endowed in 1826 by an Englishman, James Smithson, who had never visited the US—operates a vast museum and research complex that includes the National Air and Space Museum, National Museum of Natural History, National Museum of History and Technology, many of the District's art museums, and the National Zoological Park. Among the art museums operated by the Smithsonian are the National Gallery of Art, housing one of the world's outstanding collections of Western art from the 13th century to the present; the Freer Gallery of Art, housing a renowned collection of Near and Far Eastern treasures, along with one of the largest collections of the works of James McNeill Whistler, whose Peacock Room is one of the museum's highlights; the National Collection of Fine Arts; the National Portrait Gallery; and the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden. Among the capital's other distinguished art collections are the Phillips Collection, the oldest museum of modern art in the US; the Museum of African Art, located in the Frederick Douglass Memorial Home; and the Corcoran Gallery of Art, devoted primarily to American paintings, sculpture, and drawings of the last 300 years. Washington is also the site of such historic house-museums as Octagon House, Decatur House, Dumbarton Oaks, and the Woodrow Wilson House. Many national associations maintain exhibitions relevant to their areas of interest. The US National Arboretum, US Botanic Garden, and National Aquarium are in the city. In 1999, lawmakers debated plans to build a memorial for Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. between the Jefferson and Lincoln memorials in D.C.