Mao was appointed this month as the law librarian for the Library of Congress. He joined the Law Library of Congress last year as the deputy law librarian. Mao has previously worked at Georgetown University and the law firm Covington and Burling. What does the law librarian of Congress do?

The law librarian is part law librarian to Congress, part steward for the collection and part ambassador for the worldly community. The library’s primary patron is Congress, of course, so responsibilities include leading the teams here. One of the primary things we do is answer questions from members of Congress, the executive branch and the judiciary on foreign laws of the world. We have the largest foreign collection of legal materials, we’re the largest law library in the world. It’s also to make it possible for the collections to be maintained in good condition and to serve any researchers’ needs.