A Subway Library
Beijing’s subway system is adding a new amenity: a library. The ultra-modern system already has underground wi-fi, but will now also include QR codes to free e-books. The books in…
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A Three-Wheeled Library
Retired school teacher Antonio La Cava thought up an innovative way to bring the books he loves to children in remote Italian villages. He bought an Ape motorbike and hand-built a…
Harvard Library’s Deep Storage
A new interactive documentary called Cold Storage invites viewers to peer beyond Harvard’s flagship Widener Library—the tip of the iceberg in terms of the university’s massive collection—and into the vault…
Drop the Book and Put Your Hands Where I Can See Them!
Turns out borrowing that Jodi Picoult tearjerker was an affront to the State. In many cities, those pint-sized homemade libraries of the “take a book, leave a book” variety are…
A Library of Venom
Australia has some of the world’s deadliest fauna. A new library hopes to store samples of these creatures’ venom. Snakes, octopus, spiders, and even platypus will be caught and milked,…
A Library of Tools
Camden County, New Jersey could become the newest location for a tool library. These libraries aren’t filled with books—instead, their contents include hand tools, like The West Philly Tool Library,…
The Library Nightclub
An online joke at Rutgers University became a reality when library officials converted the main library into a nightclub. During the semester, students studying at Alexander Library joked they were…
Coffee is the Future of Libraries
The Telegraph looks at some of the recommendations from the Independent Library Report for England, which include the suggestion to offer the “usual amenities of coffee, sofas and toilets.”
Gifts Continue Rolling in for Ferguson Library
Following the grand jury verdict in Ferguson, protests shut down local civic institutions like schools. However, the local public library continued to serve as a beacon of hope, providing area…
Changing Shakespeare
A French public library has discovered that the institution possesses a rare ‘first folio’ of the works of William Shakespeare. There are many first folios, but these earliest anthologies all…
Rehabbing Poets’ Broken Records
New audio preservation technology just opened a treasure trove at Harvard: thousands of recordings of influential poets reading their work, once feared too deteriorated to salvage, are now being recovered.…
John Green Sends Books to Ferguson
Scott Bonner, the director of the Ferguson Municipal Public Library, answered questions on Reddit over the weekend and discussed the needs of the community in light of the ongoing protests.…