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Libraries

Celebrate 50 Years of International Literacy Day With the British Library

Butterflies, rabbits and Shakespeare: there’s something for everybody

If your book has a stamp like this, it's probably way overdue.

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Alabama Library Plans to Enforce Strict Overdue Book Ordinance

You could face a fine or even spend a night in jail for keeping books too long

Beneath this obelisk is an even more outrageous display of Mussolini's self-regard.

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Scholars Uncover Secret Message from Mussolini

The dictator’s self-image lives on deep beneath an obelisk he built to commemorate his own greatness

The Dessen Bauhaus was home to ambitious movement that went far beyond blocky architecture.

Cool Finds

Harvard Just Launched a Fascinating Resource All About Bauhaus

The newly digitized collection is as ambitious as the art school it documents

While on tour in the 1980s and 1990s, Ray Charles played this Yamaha KX88 electronic keyboard MIDI controller, customized with Braille.

Cool Finds

How the Library of Congress Is Digitizing Its Braille Music Collection

It’s not as simple as putting it through a scanner

Grab a book, grab a mic, get down.

Cool Finds

Finland’s Hot New Karaoke Bar Is a Public Library

Don’t stop believin’ in the power of music

Book carts can already get out of control quickly, so careening them along a twisty course was treacherous indeed.

Cool Finds

Librarians Have an Olympics, Too

Brains met brawn in a bookish competition for the ages

Winnie the Pooh has got new stitches, a fluffier butt and a renewed spot in the New York Public Library.

Cool Finds

Original Pooh Bear Gets Makeover, Returns to New York Public Library

Winnie and his friends are clean, fluffy and filled with stories

The lone Lorax tree in Scripps Park, La Jolla.

Visit the Original Lorax Tree in Dr. Seuss’s San Diego

Check out these Seuss-related sites in Theodore Geisel’s adopted hometown

The Future of Libraries

Besides lending books, the local institutions are training young journalists, renting garden plots and more

This musical score, in Jane Austen's handwriting, is one of nearly 600 Austen family musical treasures available in an online archive.

Cool Finds

Jane Austen’s Music Collection Is Now Online

Play piano like a Darcy with nearly 600 Austen-approved tunes

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.

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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

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