Random Library Facts

Did You Know...

• The biggest library in the world is the US Library of Congress in Washington DC. It houses 30 million books and was built in 1800.
  
  
• The National Library of Australia has over 10 million items in its collection.
  
  
• In 2006, Libraries were the second most attended cultural venue, with about half of Australia visiting libraries. (The cinema came first.)
  
  
• Saint Catherine's Monastery, Mount Sinai, Egypt, has the oldest active library in the world, dating from the 5th Century. However the collection only available to the monks of the monastery and/or special guests or scholars. (The monastery library preserves the second largest collection of early codices and manuscripts in the world, outnumbered only by the Vatican Library.)
  
  
• The oldest library open to the public is the Bibliothèque nationale de France, which can trace its origin to the royal library founded at the Louvre by Charles V in 1368.
  
  
• The first, albeit unsuccessful, attempt to establish a public library in the new colony of New South Wales was in 1809. However, it wasn't until the 1820's that subscription libraries began to emerge.
  
  
• The International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions estimates there are between 500,000 and 1 million professional libraries worldwide.
  
  
• The first large-scale Online Public Access Catalogues (OPACs) were developed at Ohio State University in 1975 and the Dallas Public Library in 1978.
  
  
• The first library catalogue was The Pinakes, dating back to 245 BC. It was created by Callimachus and was based on the Library of Alexandria.