Do you remember or did you know that all fiction is alphabetized in the Library? This means book are sorted by authors and the authors are in alphabetic order. The movies are in alphabetic order by title. So, when you browse remember to keep all in alphabetic order.
Jake Rossen has accumulated many fascinating facts about libraries. Most of the following come from his collection. The oldest library in the world dates from the seventh century BC. Philanthropist Andrew Carnegie was a one-man library-funding machine. Carnegie donated $55 million ($1.6 billion in today’s dollars) between 1886 and 1919 to open 2509 libraries around the world, including 1679 in the United States. The last Carnegie library to be built was the New Liskeard branch of the Temiskaming Shores Public Library.
Many early libraries were built with apartments on the top floor. Carnegie funded several New York City libraries, and those buildings were often constructed with apartments on the top floor. The idea was that the library’s custodians would have living quarters so that they could keep shoveling coal into furnaces at all hours of the day and night.
The Library of Congress is the largest library in the world. The world’s biggest library in terms of catalog depth is the Library of Congress (LOC), which has 168 million items. That record is a rebound from a calamity in 1814, when the then-14-year-old collection of 3000 volumes was destroyed after British troops burned the Capitol building.
The Library of Congress pays to reproduce popular magazines, including Playboy, in Braille. The LOC is so devoted to making knowledge available to everyone that it pays to reproduce popular magazines in Braille. In 1985, an irate senator from Ohio named Chalmers Wylie lobbied to get them to stop publishing a Braille version of Playboy. It was reinstated after protests.
The Guinness Book of World Records holds the record for being the book most often stolen from public libraries. There are 150 libraries around the world where you can check-out humans as a living book and listen to their stories. Want to work for the Central Intelligence Agency? At the CIA, you can earn up to six figures working in their library!
Librarians used to have to learn a specific style of handwriting called “Library hand”. The practice was prevalent in the late 1800s, when library pioneer Melvil Dewey—of the Dewey Decimal System fame—and other curators of early collections believed that legible handwriting was a must for card catalogs. The practice faded as typewriters grew in popularity.
At the end of the 19th century, library work was considered to be too overwhelming for women, and in 1900, the Brooklyn Public Library Association proposed building “a seaside rest home for those who had broken down in library service.” Thankfully, that is no longer the belief held by society. I don’t know maybe a rest home by the sea would allow me to Seas the day with a Good Book!
Benjamin Franklin started up a lending library in 1731. The Founding Father once started his own lending library in Philadelphia called the Library Company, but it required a subscription fee of 40 shillings. One of the oldest public libraries in the country opened in 1790 in Franklin, Massachusetts, where residents circulated books donated by Benjamin Franklin.
Texas is home to a gigantic Walmart-turned-library. The McAllen Public Library in McAllen, Texas, is housed in a converted Walmart location and might be the largest single-story library location in the country. The 123,000-square foot space has a computer lab, a cafe, and a 180-seat auditorium.
Vermont is home to a library that stretches across the U.S. border to Canada. The Haskell Free Library and Opera House sits directly on the border between the United States and Canada. You can walk in from Stanstead, Quebec, and walk out into Derby Line, Vermont. You don’t need a passport to cross the (literal) line running through the building, but you do have to return to your country of origin or risk fines.
Bats can be a library’s best friend. The Joanina Library at the University of Coimbra in Portugal has a number of bats in residency, but no one is calling for an exterminator as the bats prey on insects that could damage book pages. Staff drape tables with coverings overnight and clean up the guano in the morning.
Not all libraries expect publishers to do the heavy lifting. Some libraries also dabble in publishing. The Bethlehem Area Public Library in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, has a publishing arm that released two books in 2018: ‘Home At My Typewriter’-Selected Poems by Bob Cohen and ‘A Journey’ by Matt Wolf. Library staff helped to design and edit the titles.
A dirty book is mostly dangerous to the book itself. The only danger a dirty book poses is to the book itself, as dust can trap moisture that can damage pages. That’s why the Boston Public Library has a machine dubbed the Depulvera that acts like a miniature car wash for books, using a conveyor system to blast dirt from volumes.
Not all libraries require silence. The Tikkurila Library in Vantaa, Finland, has a karaoke room with thousands of songs for guests to perform. (Finland is home to a lot of karaoke-loving citizens.) Fortunately, all that warbling doesn’t rise to the level of a disruption: The room is soundproof.
There’s a library in Alaska that has a taxidermy collection (yes, you can use your library card to borrow them). Patrons of the Alaska Resources Library and Information Services in Anchorage can borrow from their collection of taxidermy items, including animals, bones, and furs. Bear and wolf fur are among the more popular requests because they’re often used in Boy Scout promotional ceremonies; Harry Potter fans opt for snowy owl mounts. Borrowers are asked not to remove specimens from their glass containers.
A Yale University library used to allow stressed-out students to borrow a therapy dog. The Lillian Goldman Law Library at Yale University used to allow patrons to check out General Montgomery, a.k.a. Monty, a border terrier mix and certified therapy dog, for 30 minutes of companionship. Sadly, Monty has since passed away. Stay tuned for more interesting facts about libraries. Stop by your local library and learn a bit about its history. There are Oceans of Possibilities to Seas the Day with a good book.