Libraries are a compliment to human knowledge and progress. They are the places where anybody can enter and get the knowledge they offer, where anybody can connect with history, writing and culture. We know every book lover loves to read but how great it would be to read in a magnificent space! So, if you are a bibliophile and pondering about the supremely prominent libraries, here goes our list of 12 unrivaled libraries of the world. Get ready to take a virtual tour of these wonderful libraries with splendid architecture and interesting collections.
12. Admont Abbey Library, Austria:
This library was built in 1776 and is 70 meters in length, 14 meters wide and 13 meters high, and is the biggest religious community library on the planet. Around 70,000 of the monastery’s roughly 200,000 volumes are put away here, and it is the biggest library of its kind on the planet. The engineering and plan express the ideals of the enlightenment and the figures by Joseph Stammel of “The Four Last Things” which enliven delineations of death, paradise, hellfire and the Last Judgment. The abbey possesses over 1,400 manuscripts as well as over 900 incunabula.
11. Deutsche Nationalbibliothek (German National Library):
The German National Library is the central library of the Federal Republic of Germany founded in 1912. The library was extended and given a new name: Deutsche Nationalbibliothek in 2006.This library as of now holds 29.7 million media units, of which 17.4 million are held in Leipzig, 10.8 million in Frankfurt am Main and 1.5 million items are available online.
10. Royal Danish Library, Denmark:
Also known as The Black Diamond, it is the national library of Denmark and furthermore serves as the university library of the University of Copenhagen. It is spread over an area of approx 21500 square meters and is a seven-story building consisting of a monolithic prism with four reading rooms, a concert hall, an exhibition gallery, bookshop and its own restaurant.
It has a collection of about 35.1 million printed materials and a digital collection of 564,000 GB. The noteworthy possessions of this library include The Gutenberg Bible, Memory of the World Register, 2,000 books by Carl Linnaeus (also known as the “father of modern taxonomy”), the Hamburg Bible and considerably more. Another attraction includes a Royal Library garden which is a hidden garden between Royal Library and Christiansborg Palace.
9. National Library of China:
NLC holds a collection of over 33.78 million rare volumes and items and is known as the largest library in Asia covering 250,000 square meters.
It houses all the oldest Chinese Literature, chronicled archives of Chinese Dynasty and the official publications of the UN. Apart from that it additionally contains 35,000 scripted turtle shells and bones, block printed volumes, copies of Buddhist sutras of the 6th century, 16,000 ancient manuscripts and a copy of Siku Quanshu (Library of the four offshoots of literature). It has a vast reading room with about 2,000 seats and a digital library.
8. George Peabody Library, Baltimore:
A hefty portion of the accumulation’s titles, dates to the nineteenth century and the library has one of the world’s first accumulations of Don Quixote versions. Mirroring the academic interests of the nineteenth century, the library comprises of a general reference collection on all subjects except music. Notable collections are British craftsmanship and design, British and American history, life story, English and American writing, Romance dialects and writing, Greek and Latin works of art, history of science, geology, and travel, including a large collection of maps. Its collection contains over 300,000 volumes, hence is often described as the “cathedral of books”. The library’s atrium is 61 feet high with beautiful black and white marble floor and many cast iron balconies.
7. Stuttgart’s Library, Germany:
It is a newly build 9 story library and ascends like an extraordinary crystalline 3D shape inside the grassed territory at Mailänder Platz. Over the 4-story center, space ascends the ventured 5-story pyramid-molded perusing room, which is encompassed by different study rooms. In the center of the building lies the spatial and meditative ‘Heart’. A fascinating fact about this library is that it is painted in white shade only so the main hues that can be seen here are the books.
6. Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Paris:
This Royal Library in France is one of the largest libraries of the world, situated in Paris having a collection of 40 million items consisting of 14 million books, 36,000 maps, 410,000 photographs, 7,000 sheets of music, documents, coins, medals, phonograph records, video documents and other antiques. Its digital library has over 3 million documents. BnF also organizes events like lectures, exhibitions, and concerts. It has a classic architectural style with beautiful painted ceilings.
5. New York Public Library:
The NYPL is the second largest public library system in the United States and was established in 1895. This library has 87 branches and has nearly 53.1 million items including e-books, books, DVDs which can be freely used by peoples around the world. NYPL has also participated in the Google Books Library Project.
4. Seattle Central Library, Washington:
The 362,987 square feet (33,722.6 m2) open library can hold around 1.45 million books and different materials, highlights include underground open parking for 143 vehicles and incorporates more than 400 open computer terminals for public. The library holds about 1.45 million books and other items. The building’s glass structure is time sensitive as the geometry of the glass gives different shades with changing daylight.
3. Bibliotheca Alexandrina, Egypt:
This 11-story library contains up to 5 million volumes of books, but there is space for up to 8 million. The library additionally a planetarium, a few exhibition halls, a school for data science, a manuscript restoration lab, and four art galleries. The building traverses 160 meters in breadth and up to 32 meters in height, while likewise plunging somewhere in the range of 12 meters into the ground. It has an open reading room for about 2000 readers.
The gray Aswan granite walls are carved with 120 distinctive scripts to pay tribute to the extravagance of human language, while the perusing room is arranged under a shocking glass rooftop – which is calculated towards the sea and measures very nearly 525 feet over.
2. Library of Congress, Washington:
The Library of Congress is the second largest library in the world in terms of its collection size. It has 160 million+ items which serve as an outstanding and diverse source of knowledge. Founded in 1800, it serves the scholars, public as well as to the Member of Congress.
It is spread over an area of 2,100,000 square feet and has three buildings, namely: Thomas Jefferson Building (Main Building), John Adams Building, James Madison Memorial Building. It also subsists a Law Library, founded in 1832 and provides access to the reliable legitimate information.
1. British Library, London:
The British Library is the largest library in the world, having more than 170 million items in both printed and digital formats. Its collection includes 14 million books, stamps, databases, videos, magazines, newspapers, play-scripts and historical documents which date back to 2000 BC. It has recently digitized 300 literary masterpieces of the 20th century and over 3 million items are added every year.
If someone wants to see the whole collection it would take over 80,000 years and all these documents and materials require 625 km of shelves. Its treasures include Diamond Sutra (world’s first printed book printed in 868), two 1215 copies of Magna Carta, The Times first edition, Codex Arundel- Leonardo da Vinci’s notebook, 3,000 years old Chinese Oracle Bones and 60 million patents. This building has the total floor area of 112,000 square meters spread over 5 underground and 9 above ground floors.
There are much more alluring libraries in the world. So, if you know about any other astonishing library then let us know in the comment box.
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