2. A copyright work is not an invention nor a patent; it is a
contribution to literature. It is not material, but intellectual, and has
no natural relation to a department which is charged with the care of the
mechanic arts; and it belongs rather to a national library system than to
any other department of the civil service. The responsibility of caring
for it would be an incident to the similar labors already devolved upon
the Librarian of Congress; and the receipts from copyright certificates
would much more than pay its expense, thus leaving the treasury the
gainer by the change.

3. The advantage of securing to our national library a complete
collection of all American copyright publications can scarcely be
over-estimated. If such a law as that enacted in 1870 had been enforced
since the beginning of the government, we should now have in the Library
of Congress a complete representation of the product of the American mind
in every department of science and literature. Many publications which
are printed in small editions, or which become "out of print" from the
many accidents which continually destroy books, would owe to such a
library their sole chance of preservation. We ought to have one
comprehensive library in the country, and that belonging to the nation,
whose aim it should be to preserve the books which other libraries have
not the room nor the means to procure.

4. This consideration assumes additional weight when it is remembered
that the Library of Congress is freely open to the public day and evening
throughout the year, and is rapidly becoming the great reference library
of the country, resorted to not only by Congress and the residents of
Washington, but by students and writers from all parts of the Union, in
search of references and authorities not elsewhere to be found. The
advantage of having all American publications accessible upon inquiry
would be to build up at Washington a truly national library,
approximately complete and available to all the people.

These considerations prevailed with Congress to effect the amendment in
copyright registration referred to.

By enactment of the statute of 1870 all the defects in the methods of
registration and deposit of copies were obviated. The original records of
copyright in all the States were thenceforward kept in the office of the
Librarian of Congress. All questions as to literary property, involving a
search of records to determine points of validi