As the world's largest library, the Library of Congress is a fantastic place to conduct research on just about anything. But if you can't get to Washington, D.C. to browse its 530 miles of bookshelves, don't worry. You can access lots of great information on its website.

The library's collection dates back to 1815, and now includes more than 144 million items, so it has information on just about every topic under the sun.

You can check out online art exhibits from the library's collection, learn more about American and world history, examine maps from the online map collections, and much more.

You can also access historic documents in the library's collection. You can look at real pictures of historic manuscripts. For example, the library has scanned in the original copies of Thomas Jefferson's papers, so you can actually read the great man's thoughts in his own handwriting.

Whether you're working on a school project, or you just want to find out more about history or current events, the Library of Congress website is a great resource.