The oldest working library is located at St. Catherine's Monastery on the Sinai Peninsula in Egypt. It was built in the mid-6th century, also becoming the second largest collection of religious materials in the world (after the Vatican). It is closed to the general public, and only monks and invited students can borrow books from it.
The Bibliothèque Nationale de France is the oldest existing public library service. It began its work in 1368, when it was still located in the Louvre. Over the past almost 700 years, the library has moved many times to new and larger premises.
The largest library in the world is the Library of Congress, which houses 158 million titles on approximately 828 miles of bookshelves. The library's collections include more than 36 million books and other printed materials, 3.5 million records, 13.7 million photographs, 5.5 million maps, 6.7 million sheets of music, and 69 million manuscripts.
The smallest libraries in the world have appeared on the streets of New York - they have room for just one reader. One bright yellow building houses 40 books. Their goal is to help city residents take a break from the frantic pace of life in the metropolis by giving them the opportunity to read good stories for free. The Little Free Library was designed by several innovative architects using recycled materials to protect the books from the elements.
The tallest library in the world, according to the Guinness Book of Records, is located on the 60th floor of the JW Marriott Hotel in Shanghai (China). It is located at an altitude of 230.9 meters above the street. The 103 bookshelves house an ever-expanding collection of Chinese and English books. By the way, the library area is not that big - only 57 square meters.
The very first librarian was Zenodotus from Ephesus. He was a Greek literary critic, grammarian, and commentator on Homer. He, a student of Philetus of Kos, became the first librarian of the Library of Alexandria.
The first library classification system was invented during the Han Empire. However, in North America it is believed that personal book collections came to the continent thanks to French settlers in the 16th century.
The first mobile library, according to the British monthly The British Workman, appeared in 1857. At this time she traveled around a circle of eight villages in Cumbria. Victorian merchant and philanthropist, George Moore, created the project with the aim of "spreading good literature among the rural people." The Warrington Traveling Library, established in 1858, was another early British traveling library.
The Bible is most likely stolen, followed by the Guinness Book of Records.
The first floating library appeared in 1959. To “launch” this project, it was necessary to use a number of ships. The custom-made special vessel entered service in 1963. Its length is 24 meters. Today the ship is used for summer tourist cruises.
In public libraries in medieval Europe, books were chained to the shelves. Such chains were long enough to remove a book from the shelf and read, but did not allow the book to be taken out of the library. This practice was widespread until the 18th century, due to the great value of each copy of the book.
The worst debtor was apparently a reader of one of the libraries in the Finnish city of Vantaa. A book handed out over 100 years ago was quietly returned there. According to the library worker, they were never able to find out who brought the book to the library. However, judging by the notes on the inside cover, the book was last officially issued at the beginning of the twentieth century.
The largest library in the world is the Library of Congress, located in Washington. The library contains 33.5 million printed publications, including 14.5 million books, 130 thousand newspapers, 29 million items of handwritten material, as well as many unique materials.
A bibliocleptomaniac is a person who steals books. One of the most famous bibliocleptomaniacs is Stephen Bloomberg, who stole more than 23,000 rare books from 268 libraries. To build his collection, estimated at about $20 million, Bloomberg used a variety of methods: sometimes he sneaked into the library through the ventilation system and even the elevator shaft!
The Russian State Library contains about 42 million items. They are located on an area equal to 9 football fields.
The most mysterious library in history is the legendary library of Ivan the Terrible, a collection of books and documents whose last owner was supposedly Ivan IV. According to one version, it was hidden by the Tsar somewhere in Moscow. The search for the library has been going on for several centuries, but it has not yet been found. There is an assumption that the library is walled up in the Kremlin dungeons.
In no library in the United States will you find Agatha Christie’s book “Ten Little Indians” (1939), which she herself considered her best work. In America this book is not published under its original title. There the novel is called “And There Were No One” - after the last phrase from the famous rhyme: “The last little black man looked tired, He went, hanged himself, and there was no one.” However, there are no Indians in the text. They were first replaced by little Indians, and then by little sailors.
Louis XIV ordered the release of an educational library of Greek and Roman classics, cleared of obscenities and accompanied by commentaries on difficult passages, for the education of his son. The collection of 64 volumes was completed 28 years after the start of work, when the son himself had long ago had children.
What is a repository of knowledge if not a library? There are very, very many of them in the world, because people began to transfer bodies of knowledge into electronic repositories relatively recently, and the first libraries appeared on Earth thousands of years ago. And, probably, they will never lose their significance, because nothing compares to the special atmosphere of a book depository.
Facts about libraries around the world
- The oldest library ever found by archaeologists was created by the Sumerians about 4,500 years ago. It contained many clay tablets with notes, since books had not yet been invented ().
- In medieval libraries, because of their value, books were chained with massive chains so that they could not be taken with them.
- Modern libraries contain about 130 million different books. This refers to 130 million works (editions), not copies. There are many orders of magnitude more copies.
- The Persian vizier Abdul Qassim Ismail, who lived about 1,000 years ago, became famous for always taking his personal library with him wherever he went. This is a very interesting fact, considering that his library included about 117,000 books, and was carried by a caravan of 400 camels, loaded with books sorted in alphabetical order.
- The most famous is the Library of Alexandria, located in Ancient Egypt. Such great minds as Aristotle and Euclid studied there. Unfortunately, it was destroyed (). It contained approximately 200,000 scrolls and 700,000 records.
- The largest library in the world is the American Library of Congress, which houses about 155 million books. About 1.7 million people visit it annually.
- The Russian state libraries of Moscow and St. Petersburg rank 5th and 6th in the world, respectively, in terms of the number of books.
- There are more public libraries in the United States than McDonald's.
- The famous bibliocleptomaniac Steve Bloomberg had a penchant for stealing books. In total, during his “career” he stole more than 23,000 books from 268 libraries in different countries, causing damage of 20 million dollars.
- In the aforementioned ancient Egyptian Alexandria, all ships entering its port paid tax in books. The book was sent to the library, where it was copied and a copy was given to the owner, and the original was taken as tax.
- The library of Ivan the Terrible has not yet been found. Some are still looking for her.
- In about 150 libraries around the world, instead of books, a storyteller comes and reads the book aloud to the visitor.
- In Norway, when any book is published, the government pays for a circulation of 1,000 copies, which are then sent to the country's libraries ().
- The digitized books of the entire Library of Congress, the largest in the world, occupy only about 15 terabytes.
- American industrial magnate Andrew Carnegie built and equipped 2,509 libraries at his own expense at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. Of these, just over 1,600 are in the United States.
- The only library in the world located on the territory of two countries at once is Haskell. It stands right on the border of the USA and Canada.
- In Ireland and Great Britain, an author who wants his book to be placed in a library must pay for it ().
- Yale University, Beineck, has a library without a single window. They are not needed there, because the walls of the building are made of translucent marble.
- Once upon a time, someone threw a book taken from it about 100 years ago into the public library of the Finnish city of Vantaa. It was not possible to identify the person who returned her.
- In Norway, you can return a book to any public library, not necessarily the one from which you took it.
- The oldest active library in the world is located in Egypt, in the monastery of St. Catherine. It was built about 1500 years ago.
- Founded almost 700 years ago, the National Library of France was first located in the Louvre, the residence of the French kings, but since then it has moved many times without stopping its work ().
- New York has free street libraries, the smallest in the world, designed for just one visitor. They look like yellow glasses and hold about 40 books. They were installed so that the townspeople could take a break from the frantic pace of life and get away for a while.
- The highest library in the world is located in Shanghai, at the Marriott Hotel, at an altitude of about 230 meters.
- The system for classifying books in a library was invented in Ancient China.
- Once upon a time, in libraries, all books were placed with the spines inward, not outward. Why - no one knows.
- The oldest known librarian is a Greek literary critic named Zenodotus, who served in the Library of Alexandria.
- The largest digital library in the world is the World Digital Library, a project of the Library of Congress.
- The International Space Station has its own library. It stores about a hundred books ().
- The Kansas Public Library looks like a giant bookshelf from the outside.
- In the Italian city of Perugia there is a library named after Sandro Penna, the building of which looks like a flying saucer.
- At Singapore's Bishan Public Library, the reading rooms are carefully soundproofed to prevent visitors from disturbing each other.
- In the German city of Magdeburg there is an unusual public library built from old beer crates.
Books not only give us knowledge and brighten up our leisure time, sometimes they surprise us... So, we invite you to learn about the most unusual books and libraries:
The smallest library in the world
Modern mobile communications have replaced the old pay phones located in street booths. But in England they are not thrown away as unnecessary rubbish. British Telecom, a British telecom operator, sells such booths to everyone. And what the booth will become in its “new life” depends only on the buyer’s imagination. Some people make storage rooms or showers out of them. And residents of the tiny English town of Westbury-sub-Mandip turned a red telephone booth into a library. Having bought it for a symbolic one pound, the townspeople built shelves inside, adjusted the lighting and placed about a hundred printed publications and DVDs in the new library.
Reading enthusiasts can use the outdoor library services around the clock throughout the calendar year. Night reading is facilitated by indoor lighting. There are classics, modern literature, culinary publications, and magazines. The library operates without a librarian. Residents of the city, of which there are only 800 people, conscientiously serve themselves. They periodically replenish the shelves with new books.
Having taken one of the books home, they certainly bring it back. The townspeople loved their library. Sometimes you have to stand in line to take a good book home to read.
The most ancient printed books
The Dharani scroll, also called a sutra, is considered the most ancient of all printed works. Its text is printed using letters carved on wooden blanks. The sutra was discovered in South Korea in 1966 during excavations of the foundations of Bulguksa Pagoda. Researchers have concluded that it was printed approximately in 704 AD.
A collection of poems from the Tang Dynasty is currently kept at Yonsei University in Korea. It contains 28 printing pages, no longer made with wooden, but with metal printing forms in 1160.
The oldest medical literature is represented by a small clay tablet with Sumerian text skillfully executed on it by master printers. It was discovered in the Iraqi town of Nippur. Researchers date it to 2100 BC. Today, the first medical printed sample is kept in Philadelphia, USA, in the University Museum. The text printed on the tablet consists of recipes for medicinal ointments and plasters, which should be prepared from salt, mustard, crushed turtle shell and the nagashi plant. Some medicines also contain beer in their formulations.
An interesting discovery was made by scientists in China. It turned out to be paper created in the period from 71 BC to 21 AD, that is, 100 years earlier than was previously believed.
The first book created using a printing press was the 42-line Guttenberg Bible. This full-length printed edition was published in the German town of Mainz by Johannes Guttenberg around 1454. The Latin grammar book Donatus uses paper produced around 1450.
One of the first printed books, the date of publication of which was established quite precisely, was the Psalter. Its creators were Peter Schaeffer, Gutenberg's first assistant, and Johann Fust. And the date of publication of the Psalter is August 14, 1457. William Caxton published the History of Troy in 1473-1474 in Cologne.
The first work of Slavic book printers was the book “Apostle”, produced in the period from 1563 to 1564. Ivan Fedorov and P. T. Mstislavtsev printed their first books using wooden boards. In this case, a font was used that was created by the deacon based on the Moscow half-rut of the 16th century. Almost thirty copies of the book have survived to this day.
The earliest encyclopedia is of Greek origin. It was the work of Speusippus, Plato's nephew. And it dates back to about 370 BC. The author of the encyclopedia “Liber exerptionum” was the Scottish monk Richard, who was a British subject, in 1140.
The biggest books
1. The so-called “Superbook”, published in 1976 in the American town of Denver, in the state of Colorado, is recognized as the largest book in the world. It's three hundred pages long. The book weighs over 250 kilograms. Its length and width are 3.07 and 2.74 meters, respectively.
2. Another huge representative in the list of the largest books in the world is the map book Magnificent Maps: Power, Propaganda and Art, which contains 37 maps. This is the so-called Klenke Atlas, its height is 1.75 meters, its width is 1.9 meters. The atlas was made in 1660 especially for the British King Charles II and presented to him by the Dutch merchant Johannes Klencke.
3. In 2004, one of the largest books in the world was created in Russia. The book, called “The World's Largest Book for Babies,” is 6 meters high, 3 meters wide, and weighs 492 kilograms. The author of the idea is Andrey Tyunyaev. The book contains 12 poems by children's poets, such as: Sergei Mikhalkov, Andrei Tyunyaev, Vladimir Stepanov, Sergei Eremeev. The book giant was specially made for the 17th Moscow International Book Exhibition.
4. However, perhaps the most famous of all the great books is the Giant Codex (Codex Gigas), which was made in the early 13th century (around 1230) in the city of Podlazice (Czech Republic). At that time it was the largest book in the world. According to legend, the monk who made the book sold his soul to the devil. Having committed an offense, the monk promised the abbot that within one night he would write a book that would contain most of the human knowledge of that time. However, when the time was almost up, the monk realized that he did not have time and resorted to the help of the devil, selling his soul to him.
After production, the book contained 640 pages, but only 624 pages have survived to this day, the weight of the work is 75 kilograms, height 915 cm, width 508 cm, thickness 22 cm. At the moment, the work is in the Royal Swedish Library (Stockholm).
5. The collection of British parliamentary documents in 1112 volumes is also called the most voluminous multi-volume publication. The work was published by the University of Ireland in 1968-1972, weighing 3.3 tons and costing 50 thousand pounds sterling. If you devote ten hours to reading it every day, it will take you six years to read it completely. The multi-volume edition was published in 500 copies. The cost of one multi-volume set in 1987 was £9,500.
6. The dictionary “Deutsches Warterbuch” by the authors Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm is the largest of all the world’s dictionaries. Its 33 volumes contain 34,519 pages. It was created over about 20 years, from 1854 to 1971. Today its value is estimated at DM 5,425.
The smallest books
1. Children's book lovers will be interested to know that the tiniest children's book measures 1x1 mm. This is the tale of "Old King Cole". It was produced on paper with a density of 22 mm per 1 meter/sq. m. The circulation was 85 pieces. To turn book pages, you will need a thin needle. The unique edition was published by the Scottish publishing house Gleniffer Press.
2. In 1996, Anatoly Konenko published the smallest book in the world, 0.9x0.9 mm, for which he was included in the Guinness Book of Records. This is Chekhov's story "Chameleon". Each of the 30 pages has 250 letters. The book comes with a microscope. When publishing books, Konenko acts not only as a microminiaturist, but also as an artist, designer, and bookbinder. He is one of the three best Russian miniature bookbinders.
3. And yet, true to their tenacity, the Japanese “shed” another 1 square millimeter of area. On World Book Day they exhibited a 2.8 x 4 millimeter volume. It has 24 pages containing 100 verses of ancient Japanese poetry. The company that published this book was awarded a special prize, and the book was recognized as the smallest in the world.
4. However, the smallest book in the world at the moment is considered to be a book created using nanotechnology, it was created by employees of the Simon Fraser Institute. It measures 0.07 mm by 0.1 mm, so you will need a microscope to read its contents. A beam of gallium ions was used to create it. The diameter of the beam was 7 nanometers, his program cut out the space near each word and each letter. Silicon was used as the basis of the book; there are a total of 30 microplates in the book. The circulation of this microbook was 150 copies
The most voluminous books
1. The longest novel is the book by the French writer Jules Romain “Men of Goodwill”. 27 volumes of the novel were published in 1932-1946. The English version turned out to be shorter and took up only 4959 pages in 14 volumes. The book's table of contents is 100 pages long. In total, the novel contains 2 million 70 thousand words.
We have long been accustomed to libraries. From the first days of school we hear this word. "Read this story for your next lesson. You can find the book in the library." This is how our acquaintance with the wonderful world of libraries begins. For some of us, this place is a source of information, a repository of books. For others, the library reading rooms become a place where they can come and work, hide from the hustle and bustle and feel the warmth and comfort. And sometimes we just go there to pass the time and leaf through the pages of magazines and books.
What do we know about libraries?
What does the word "library" mean?
Library (Greek: “place of storage of books”) is an institution in which collected works of printing and writing are stored for public use, and reference and bibliographic work is also carried out there. Libraries are an integral part of the country and nation; they reflect the human need for the accumulation and enhancement of knowledge, cultural and intellectual development.
What kinds of libraries are there?
Currently, there are different types of libraries: national, regional, public, special, as well as “educational” (university, institute and school).
When did the first libraries appear?
The first libraries appeared in the Ancient East. The most famous ancient Eastern library is the Library of Ashurbanipal in Nineveh: It contains a collection of cuneiform tablets from the palace of the Assyrian king Ashurbanipal. One of the most famous ancient libraries is the Library of Alexandria: founded at the beginning of the 3rd century BC, it was a center of education and science in the Hellenistic world. Its funds included about 750,000 scrolls. More than one and a half thousand years ago it was destroyed: there are many versions as to how this happened. The most popular one is that the library was burned during the capture of Alexandria by the Ottoman Turks. At the beginning of the 21st century, the unique book depository, which became a legend, was restored through the efforts of a number of countries. Now it is the main library of Egypt, a cultural center located on the shores of the Mediterranean Sea in the city of Alexandria. The library is both a memorial to the Library of Alexandria, lost to antiquity, and a modern center of science and education.
In the Middle Ages, monasteries had libraries with scriptoria (workshops for copying manuscripts). With the invention of printing by Johannes Gutenberg in the 15th century, the number of libraries began to increase, and in modern times, with the spread of literacy, the number of library visitors also increased.
What is the largest library in the world?
One of the largest libraries in the history of mankind is Library of Congress in Washington. The library has more than 75 million titles, including books, photographs, recordings, musical compositions. The library opened in 1800 with a total value of books of $5,000.
What is the largest library in Russia?
The largest library in Russia and the second largest library in the world (after the US Library of Congress) is Russian State Library(former Lenin Library) in Moscow. It was created on the basis of the Rumyantsev Museum. In 2008 it celebrates its 180th anniversary. The library's collection exceeds 42 million storage units.
What is the largest digital library in the world?
The largest electronic library today is the World Digital Library. Its grand opening took place on April 21, 2009. The founder of this global project is the US Library of Congress. Participants in the international project are national book depositories and archives of various countries, including Russia. Thanks to this unique library, millions of people around the world can get free access to cultural treasures and archives from around the world in seven languages, including Russian.
The most mysterious library in history is the legendary library of Ivan the Terrible, a collection of books and documents, the last owner of which was supposedly Ivan IV. According to one version, it was hidden by Ivan the Terrible. The search for the library has been going on for several centuries, but it has not yet been found. There is an assumption that the library is walled up in the Kremlin dungeons.
Tallest library- a space library on board the Mir orbital complex, which contains more than a hundred books - from the works of K. E. Tsiolkovsky to the novels of I. Ilf and E. Petrov.
Did you know that...
one of oldest printed books, which have survived to this day, after restoration, are on public display in the British Library in London. The so-called Diamond Sutra, containing the sacred Buddhist text, was created in May 868 by a certain Wong Zei.
Abdul Qassim Ismail - the great vizier of Persia (10th century) was always near his library. If he went somewhere, the library “followed” him. 117 thousand book volumes were transported by four hundred camels. Moreover, the books (i.e. camels) were arranged in alphabetical order.
Source: http://books.tmel.ru/
Some facts about libraries and people's relationship with books are simply amazing.
Fact 1.
The Library of Congress in Washington is by far the largest in the world. It contains about 75 million different items, including audio and video recordings, photographs. To get acquainted with at least a third of the literature stored in the library, a lifetime is not enough.
Fact 2.
IN THE USA more public libraries than McDonald's.
Fact 3.
If we divide all the books stored in the Moscow “public” library by all employees, we get 29,830 copies per person.
Fact 4.
The largest library of the ancient world that has survived to this day is the library of the Assyrian king Ashurbanipal (VII century BC), who was not so much an avid reader as he loved collecting texts. Even during wars and army campaigns, Ashurbanipal captured entire cuneiform libraries. Most of the collection of texts discovered by archaeologists consists of 25,000 clay tablets with cuneiform texts.
Fact 5.
Stephen Bloomberg
Bibliocleptomania is not just a difficult word to pronounce. This is a real disease, which is characterized by an immense love for books and the desire to appropriate library copies for oneself. One of the most famous representatives of this disease, Stephen Bloomberg, stole more than 23,000 rare books from 268 libraries in different parts of the world. To build his collection, estimated at about $20 million, Bloomberg used a variety of methods, sometimes sneaking into the library through the ventilation system and elevator shaft.
Fact 6.
Abdul Qassim Ismail - the great vizier of Persia (10th century) was always near his library. If he went somewhere, the library “followed” him. 117 thousand book volumes were transported by four hundred camels. Moreover, the books (i.e. camels) were arranged in alphabetical order.
Fact 7.
IN high-ranking an FBI agent posted a secret internal manual detailing the Bureau's interrogation procedures in Library of Congress, where any person with library cardcan read it.
Fact 8.
Library of Alexandria In Ancient Egypt, all ships visiting the city of Alexandria were required to deposit their books at the library for copying. The original remained in the library, and the copy was returned to the owner.
Fact 9.
There are some kind of ghost libraries, the existence of which is known for certain, but their location can only be guessed at. One of the most mysterious collections of books is the library of Ivan the Terrible. According to one version, the library is hidden within the walls of the Moscow Kremlin.
Fact 10.
When the movie Groundhog Day" was released, the Washington Post wrote that "the film will never included to the Library of Congress". In 2006 the film was selected National Council to save in US Library of Congress.
Fact 11
There are libraries where you can call a person as a live books and listen to his stories. There are 150 such libraries in the world.
Fact 12.
In some German cities have public "art libraries" where you pay up to five euros and take paintings and sculptures local artists to admire them in own home for several months.
Fact 13.
When you post book in Norway, Norwegian government buys 1000 copies of your book and distributes them across all libraries in the country.
Fact 14.
At the age of 9, Ron McNair (the African-American astronaut who died in the Challenger explosion in 1986) refused to leave the segregated Lake City public library because his books were being searched. After the police and his mother were called, he was allowed to take books from the library that now bears his name.
Fact 15.
In public libraries in medieval Europe, books were chained to the shelves. Such chains were long enough to remove a book from the shelf and read, but did not allow the book to be taken out of the library. This practice was widespread until the 18th century, due to the great value of each copy of the book.
Fact 16.
All books in the US Library of Congress in digital form occupy only 15 terabytes.
Fact 17.
IN THE USA public libraries became one of the first institutions of racial integration because whites in general did not mind reading in the same room as people of color. Some of them were I’m even ashamed of the time when libraries were divided.
Fact 18.
One of the most prominent examples of philanthropy was industrialist Andrew Carnegie, who founded 2,509 libraries in the late 19th and early 20th centuries throughout the English-speaking world, including the US, UK, Australia and New Zealand. Of these, 1,679 were built in the United States. Carnegie spent more than $55 million of his fortune on libraries alone and is therefore often referred to as the "patron saint of libraries."
Fact 19.
Haskell- b free library built on AmericanCanadian border. Leaving the library through the opposite entrance requires a mark on country customs in the future.
Fact 20.
124500 square feet former Walmart building in McAllen, Texas were converted into the largest one-story public library in the United States.
Fact 22.
Beinecke - library rare books and manuscripts Yale University has no windows because its walls are made from translucent marble.
Fact 23.
IN airport Schiphol has a library in Amsterdam (opened in 2010), Where you can borrow books in a trip "on parole". Not available in the library book return dates and librarians. If a passenger wants to keep a book, the airport simply asks to leave another book in return.
Fact 24.
A book handed out over 100 years ago was quietly returned to one of the libraries in the Finnish city of Vantaa. According to the library worker, they were never able to find out who brought the book to the library. However, judging by the notes on the inside cover, the book was last officially issued at the beginning of the twentieth century.
Fact 25.
In Norway you can return book from the library anywhere in the country no matter where you got it.
Fact 26.
Majority major American libraries (public or private) are federal depositories. It means that they are required by law to provide you with access to the library and computer access, regardless your social status if you want to see your documents.
Fact 27.
Auckland Library in California it's called "Library of tools lending" and contains 3,500 instruments.
Fact 28.
Fact 29.
In the 17th century, Nicolas Grollier de Servier came up with a machine to speed up the reading of books: a kind of mill wheel with book stands instead of blades, on which several books were simultaneously placed, open to the required pages.
Fact 30.
Napoleon read at a speed of two thousand words per minute. Balzac read a two hundred page novel in half an hour. M. Gorky read at a speed of four thousand words per minute. T. Edison read 2-3 lines at once, memorizing the text in almost pages thanks to maximum concentration.