national library week.

National Library Week is a yearly celebration highlighting the role that libraries play in our lives. This year the theme is “Libraries = Strong Communities.” National Library Week runs from April 7 to April 13 and is a great time to remind yourself of how awesome the library is.

The Central Library in downtown Seattle is my current home library. Honestly, I probably go there once a week to either return a book or check something new out. Every time I enter the library I am constantly surprised by all the different library patrons and all the different and fun things you can do at the library.

You can:
• borrow books (including ebooks)
• check out movies
• check out music
• read magazines and newspapers
• host or go to an event in one of the meeting rooms
• visit the gift shop
• visit the cafe
• chat with the genealogy librarian
• get recommendations of books to read from other librarians
• listen to authors talk about their books
• attend a writing class
• learn new computer and job skills
• get tax help
• learn to speak a different language

And that is just a few of the things you can do. There is so much that the library has to offer.

Here are some fun library facts:

There are more public libraries than Starbucks in the United States. [source]

In ancient Egypt, all ships visiting the city were obliged to surrender their books to the library of Alexandria and be copied. The original would be kept in the library and the copy given back to the owner. [source]

Andrew Carnegie founded 2,509 libraries in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Of these libraries, 1,679 of them were built in the United States. Carnegie spent over $55 million of his wealth on libraries alone and is often referred to as the “Patron Saint of Libraries.” [source]

The Harvard University library has a collection of books bound in human skin. [source]

Americans go to school, public and academic libraries more than three times as frequently as they go to the movies. [source]

The world’s oldest continually running library is at the St. Catherine’s Monastery in Sinai, Egypt. It was built around 550 AD and houses the second largest collection of religious material in the world (after the Vatican). Unfortunately, it is only accessible by monks and invited scholars and is not available to the public. [source]

The largest library in the world is the Library of Congress with more than 168 million items. [source]

For more information about National Library Week, visit the American Library Association’s website: http://www.ala.org/conferencesevents/celebrationweeks/natlibraryweek