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There may be no greater repository of analog information than the library, a glorious assembly of printed pages that can take us on adventures, educate us, and fill our days and nights with details of worlds beyond our own all free of charge. Today, there are roughly 116,867 public and academic libraries dotting the country. To celebrate National Library Week, we ve rounded up 25 fascinating facts about these irreplaceable institutions.
1. Benjamin Franklin started up a lending library in 1731.
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One of the oldest public libraries in the country opened in 1790 in Franklin, Massachusetts, where residents circulated books donated by Benjamin Franklin. The Founding Father once started his own lending library in 1731 in Philadelphia called the Library Company, but it required a subscription fee of 40 shillings.
The NYPL s 1902 Ceremonial Tiffany Trowel
arrow The Ceremonial Trowel Courtesy of the NYPL
On November 10th, 1902, a prestigious crowd gathered at Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street for the laying of cornerstone for the New York Public Library, a newly-incorporated organization formed from the wealth and literary collections of John Jacob Astor, James Lenox, and Samuel Tilden. Among those in attendance for the historic occasion were Mayor Seth Low, Reverend W.R. Huntington, Catholic Archbishop John Murphy Farley, and John Bigelow, president of the library s board of trustees.
Construction had been progressing steadily at the former Croton Reservoir, and the foundations were largely complete. Within a niche carved into the cornerstone, a bronze box was nestled, filled with the day’s newspapers and coins, as well as items documenting the library’s history.