Why can't US citizens check out books from the Library of Congress?

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Why aren't US citizens allowed to check out books from the library of congress? We pay taxes to help the library continue to function and the library of congress has the biggest collection of books and articles in he world.
 
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Here is the mission statement for the Library of Congress.
http://www.loc.gov/ndl/mission.html"
It appears to be out of date, but I don't imagine its priorities have changed all that much since 2004. The books are for Congress first, and I suppose that's why they can take books out and you can't.

Is there a specific book that you need to take out and can't get from any other source?
 
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For most of us (commoners), I think its purpose is: from " 2. THE SECOND PRIORITY" in the above link.

"and to preserve the record of the past for the sake of present and future creativity"

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If they loaned books then the size of the library would change constantly and people would have to re-calculate all those statistics about how many "library of congresses" an iPod could hold.
 
Only for iPod Nano

ps. We pay taxes for the army as well, but they never let me borrow a tank for the weekend.
 
rewebster said:
I like to see the NSA library
Do you think it's written in invisible ink or perhaps they have this problem http://www.theonion.com/content/node/43014
 
mgb_phys said:
Only for iPod Nano

ps. We pay taxes for the army as well, but they never let me borrow a tank for the weekend.

ZING!

If you need a book from the LoC, you can go in, call it up, wait an hour, then read/study it ll you want while you are there. You can make copies on anything that's in public domain. It's not the place to go to borrow the latest Stephen King novel. Imagine how much more of our taxes would be needed if they had to go after all those overdue books.
 
mgb_phys said:
Do you think it's written in invisible ink or perhaps they have this problem http://www.theonion.com/content/node/43014

what a CRACKUP!

intelligence?
 
mgb_phys said:
If they loaned books then the size of the library would change constantly and people would have to re-calculate all those statistics about how many "library of congresses" an iPod could hold.

Most people don't read , so I doubt the books will fly off the shelves.