Watch video of Mark Dimunation, chief of the Rare Book and Special Collections Division at the Library of Congress, present as part of the Vanderbilt Library Lecture Series. His talk is titled “Forged in Fire: The Jefferson Collection and the Origins of the Library of Congress.” The nucleus of the Library of Congress was forged in fire. In 1815 Congress purchased Thomas Jefferson’s personal library–then the largest private book collection available in North America–to replace the congressional library destroyed when the British burned the U.S. Capitol the previous year. When Mr. Jefferson’s books arrived in Washington, D.C., the Library of Congress found its center and its impetus.“ Mr. Dimunation recently completed the project to reconstruct Thomas Jefferson’s Collection.