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Libraries

As much as possible of the ad-hoc memorial that arose outside the headquarters of the Dallas Police after the shootings of five officers this year will be preserved in the city's public library.

Trending Today

Library Launches Campaign to Preserve Shrines to Slain Dallas Police Officers

A fundraising effort looks to make remnants of the city’s tragic shootings available for future generations

An annotated note hidden in the margins of an 18th-century mathematical manuscript by a past restoration attempt.

Cool Finds

How Experts Are Digitizing Ancient Manuscripts

Digital preservation is more work than it might seem

All aboard the book train

The Innovative Spirit fy17

This Speedy, Wall-Crawling Conveyor System Will Now Deliver Books at the New York Public Library

Like a robotic, book-carrying train

This book of Grimm's Fairy Tales is entirely written using words with one syllable.

Cool Finds

Channel Childhoods Gone By With This Digital Archive of Victorian Children’s Books

From nursery rhymes to religious lectures, this digital archive shows how kids read in a bygone age

A new imaging system could help people to read books without touching them.

New Research

This Camera Uses Radiation to Read Closed Books

No need to open a book to read past its cover

Cool Finds

Four Finds from University of Kansas’ Collection of Radical Zines

The university’s Solidarity! Radical Library boasts a collection of almost 1,000 alternative papers

"Shotgun Seamstress"

Cool Finds

The New York Public Library’s Radical Zine Collection Is Now on Display

Check out pamphlets from people like Noam Chomsky and Mumia Abu-Jamal

Pew Research Shows Public Libraries Remain Vital to Communities

The latest poll shows that the majority of Americans think libraries have the resources they need

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.

Trending Today

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.

Trending Today

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

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