The company also will help create interactive kiosks at the library's Thomas Jefferson Building in Washington so visitors can have a closer look at items such as the rough draft of the Declaration of Independence and the Gutenberg Bible, according to a statement .
Microsoft has formed partnerships with libraries at Yale and the Universities of California, digitizing their collections and putting them online, as rival Google Inc. bolsters its own Internet-based book-search program.
The Library of Congress, founded in 1800, is the world's largest, according to its Web site. British armed forces burned down the original library in 1814 during an invasion, and Jefferson later offered his own collection as a replacement.
The kiosks will use Microsoft's Windows Vista operating system and the Silverlight video technology that competes with Adobe Systems Inc.'s Flash.
