Q: What do alligators, Adam Smith, and Robinson Crusoe have in common? 

A: The Commerce Research Library!

The Commerce Research Library is located in the Herbert C. Hoover Building (HCHB) in Washington, DC. The Library provides access to databases, books, training opportunities, and presentations that support the ongoing work of Department employees. The historic Reading Room is a beautiful and welcoming physical space available for quiet work and events. While mainly serving HCHB, the Library provides all Commerce staff select database and training resources.

Wealth of Nations (Dublin edition)

In addition to being an important resource repository and beautiful space, the Library is also home to a first edition of one of the most influential book on economics ever written: Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations.  Three different editions of this title first appeared in 1776 in London, Dublin, and Berlin; however, the Dublin edition perhaps has a more interesting story than the other two editions.  Although Ireland had been ruled by the British crown since the period of the Plantagenets in the late Middle Ages, it was a separate kingdom with its own parliament until the Acts of Union in 1800 and, unlike the rest of Great Britain, had no copyright law.  Consequently, Dublin book sellers in the eighteenth century built a thriving business selling cheap, pirated editions of British books within weeks of their publication in Great Britain.

Alligators in the basement!

The Library is also the cultural heart of the Department of Commerce, keeping safe its history.  Case in point, this 1932 Washington Post article about the alligators loose in the Herbert Hoover Building.  Pay Cut, Furlough, and Dismissal kept Commerce staff on their toes!

After Robinson Crusoe…

Daniel Defoe is best known as the author of the novels Robinson Crusoe and Moll Flanders, but he primarily earned his living as an economic pamphleteer and a freelance business consultant. He wrote The Complete English Tradesman in 1737, which is considered to be one of the earliest manuals on business management, and it is the oldest item the Library has in its collection.

Learn more about Commerce and OGC

The Library is one of the many reasons the Department of Commerce is such an attractive place to come and work.  Learn more about the Office of the General Counsel, review employment opportunities, or submit a resume.

Authored by Laura Swift, MLS, and Dan Epstein, MLS, Commerce Research Library, Office of the General Counsel