Friday Fun: The 7 Most Impressive Libraries From Throughout History

Thanks to Mark Spicer for bringing this item to my attention. Note that the site I'm linking to sells printer cartridges, but still has some cool content.

The 7 Most Impressive Libraries From Throughout History. Drop by the article, it's well worth reading. It also has links to each of the libraries.

  1. The Great Library & Mouseion: The First Universal Library (Alexandria, Egypt)
  2. The Celsus Library: One of Antiquity's Finest Libraries (Ephesus, Turkey)
  3. The University of Sankore: An Ancient Seat of Muslim Learning (Sankore, Timbuktu)
  4. The Bodleian: One of The Oldest Surviving European Libraries (Oxford, England)

    It is said that King Charles I once asked the chief librarian of the Bodleian Library if he could borrow a book. A few years later, Oliver Cromwell asked the same question. The librarian refused them both. Stuart or Roundhead, books in the Bodleian could be read on the premises or not at all.

  5. Chetham's Library: The UK's Oldest Free Public Reference Library (Manchester, England)
  6. Library of Congress: Jefferson's Legacy (Washington D.C., United States)
  7. The British Library: One of The World's Most Extensive Collections (London, England)

(As a non-Friday Fun aside, I think this company does commercial/corporate blogging very well, something library/institutional blogs could learn from. First create interesting content that's related to your product or service, then once people are on your site enjoying what you've created, do a soft sell for your product or service. Engagement before selling.)

Tags

More like this

Trust me, I really tried to come up with a cool, funny title for this post. Anyways... We have a new reference assistant starting here next week. As somewhat typical for such a position, the new staff member has a science subject background rather than a library background. In this case, Maps/GIS…
I'm eager to start reading more e-books. I rarely re-read books (except for work), and my friends rarely borrow paper ones from me, so I have little reason to hang on to paper books. E-books would be just the thing. But the prices aren't any good. I either have to pay more for an e-book than what…
I've lived all my short career in academic libraries thus far on the new-service frontier. In so doing, I've looked around and learned a bit about how academic libraries, research libraries in particular, tend to manage new services. With apologies to all the botanists I am about to offend by…
It's been a while since I did anything on my series about library ways of knowing. If you'd like to refresh your memory: The classical librarian The humble index Classification Today I'll finish my discussion of classification, and distinguish it from subject analysis, since that distinction…

So all impressive libraries of modern times are in English-speaking countries? Some people might disagree...

By Lassi Hippeläinen (not verified) on 12 Jun 2009 #permalink