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Libraries

The Mertz Library hosts one of the world's largest collections of material about plants.

Cool Finds

Go Inside New York’s Nearly Secret Botanical Library

It’s a gardener’s fragrant fantasy

Carla Hayden will be the nation's first woman and first African-American to serve as Librarian of Congress.

Trending Today

Meet Your New Librarian of Congress

Carla Hayden will make history as the first African-American in the role—and the first woman

A courtyard in front of a mosque adjacent to the al-Qarawiyyin Library, pre-restoration.

Cool Finds

The World’s Oldest Working Library Will Soon Open Its Doors to the Public

After renovations wrap up in September, the library at Morocco’s al-Qarawiyyin University will debut an exhibition section for non-scholars

Tucked inside the campus of Indiana University, the Lilly Library is your one-stop shop for rare cultural treasures

See the Gutenberg Bible, 32,000 3D Mechanical Puzzles and a Lock of Edgar Allen Poe’s Hair at This Rare Library

Curiosity is a credential at Indiana University Library’s Lilly Library

The library's current location isn't where Hamilton and Burr read books, but the membership library still owns books that they checked out.

Cool Finds

This Library Has Books Checked Out by Hamilton and Burr

The New York Society Library was wide enough for both men

Tolkien relied on maps to write his books—and cared a lot about how his fans saw Middle-earth.

Cool Finds

One Day Only: A Chance to View One Map to Rule Them All

A rare Tolkien-annotated map goes on display June 23

Robot librarians might one day help human librarians track down misplaced books.

Cool Finds

This Robot Librarian Locates Haphazardly Placed Books

It’s the next best thing since the Dewey Decimal System

Scene from All is Lost, a 1923 film identified at the Library of Congress's Mostly Lost Film Festival

Cool Finds

The Library of Congress Needs Your Help to Identify These Silent Movies

For the fifth year, the “Mostly Lost” film festival calls on its audience to help identify obscure details in movie-making history

A "Walking Library" in London, circa 1930s

Cool Finds

A Brief History of Taking Books Along for the Ride

Have books, will travel

A Little Free Library in Sandy Springs, Georgia.

Cool Finds

Build Your Own Library at the First-Ever Little Library Festival

The book-sharing stations have popped up all across the United States

Basta Ya! (Enough!) was a community bilingual newspaper published in San Francisco, California from 1969 to about 1973.

Cool Finds

Read Almost 150 Years’ Worth of Mexican-American Journalism

History is in the headlines at the Historic Mexican and Mexican American Press Collection

Trending Today

Supreme Court Declines to Hear Copyright Challenge to Google Books

By turning down the case, the Supreme Court made a stand for fair use

Would-be banners cited everything from religion to "condones public displays of affection" for their challenges.

Trending Today

These Were 2015’s Most Challenged Books

This year’s list includes S&M, LGBT content…and the Bible.

Romp with Ramona, Ribsy and Henry Huggins at Grant Park in Portland.

Cool Finds

Celebrate Beverly Cleary’s 100th Birthday With a Trip to Her Sculpture Garden

Ramona’s creator is even more timeless thanks to Portland’s tribute in bronze

The Library of Congress, where the subject term "illegal alien" will no longer be used.

Trending Today

The Library of Congress Will Ditch the Subject Heading “Illegal Aliens”

Student activists are to thank for the change

Cool Finds

This Transgender Archive’s Oldest Artifacts Tell a Story of Courage and Community

The Digital Transgender Archive was born out of two researchers’ frustration with finding materials by and about transgender people

Book hoarding has never been so lucrative.

Cool Finds

Competitive Book Collecting Is a Thing

Young bibliophiles duke it out in the National Collegiate Book Collecting Contest

A charred fragment of one of the Herculaneum Scrolls.

New Research

Metallic Ink Discovered in Ancient Scrolls Buried by Mount Vesuvius

New discovery may help researchers read ancient scrolls

A red pigment reference from the Forbes Pigment Collection helped prove that a supposed Jackson Pollock painting was a fake.

This Could Be the World’s Most Colorful Library

Harvard’s Forbes Pigment Collection preserves some of history’s most precious colors—and helps conserve the world’s greatest art

Shackleton brought everything from trashy novels to accounts of Arctic rescues with him to Antarctica.

Cool Finds

Historians Finally Figured Out What Was on Shackleton’s Bookshelf

The brave explorer likely found solace in his library

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