The largest libraries in the world: description, history and interesting facts

2024 Author: Henry Conors | [email protected]. Last modified: 2024-02-12 02:41

Well-known fact: if you want to read some book, go to the library, most likely, there you can find the thing you need. Every big (and not only) city of every state has its own libraries. Some are very small, some are a little bigger. And what are the largest libraries in the world, where are they located and what is special about them?

Which institutions are included

The largest libraries in the world are those in which more than fourteen million books live. There are twenty-four of them on the planet - the smallest of them is the library of our Novosibirsk, the largest is the American Library of Congress. In addition to them, the list of the largest libraries in the world includes literature repositories in such cities and countries as Russian Moscow and St. Petersburg, American New York and Boston, Canadian Ottawa, French Paris, Danish Copenhagen, Swedish Stockholm and many others … All and do not list! It is impossible to cover all these libraries in one short article. Let's randomly touch only some of this list.

Library of Congress

The largest library in the world by fardeserves to be known to as many people as possible about her and her story. It is located in the capital of the United States, the city of Washington, and has about one hundred and fifty-five million books and more than fifty million manuscripts.

The history of this library began in 1800 thanks to then President John Adams. It was then that a law was signed to transfer the capital to Washington, and in this law there was an indication of the allocation of five thousand dollars for the purchase of books for Congress and the premises for them. At first, access to this library was open only to the leadership of the country - members of Congress, the Senate, and the president himself. So it's no wonder the new vault became known as the Library of Congress.

Thomas Jefferson played a significant role in the development of the Library of Congress. It was he, being the president of the country, who began to significantly expand the library fund, and having already given up his post to the next manager, he offered his personal collection for the library, in which there were more than six thousand volumes - this happened after the British burned Washington during the war, and with it the Capitol, where the library was located. There was no such collection in the States. Thus, thanks to Jefferson, the revival of the first among the largest libraries in the world began. Next - a little more about the institution.

The main among the largest libraries in the world is located in three buildings at once, interconnected by a thread of underground passages; Each of these buildings bears the name of aany person. The main building, the oldest, is named after Thomas Jefferson. At the end of the thirties of the last century, a second building appeared - named after John Adams. The third building was named after James Madison, it is the newest - it was opened only in the eighties of the last century. It contains periodicals from all over the world.

By the way, about literature. What's not in the Library of Congress! Books on law, medicine, philology, agriculture, politics, history, technical and natural sciences… In total, there are eighteen reading rooms in three library buildings, where these riches are placed. And since the thirties of the last century, the library has become national.

British Library

The National British Library dates back to the beginning of the seventies of the last century. Compared to the Library of Congress, it is still very young, but in terms of the number of books it is only slightly inferior to it - it contains about one hundred and fifty million different copies. In the list of the largest libraries in the world, it takes an honorable second place.

The British Library is located in London. This repository has many truly unique masterpieces of literature. For example, it is in the British Library (by the way, it also consists of three buildings) that the manuscript of the epic Beowulf is located - the only copy in the whole world. The first printed map of the New World is also stored there, where you can see the most valuable manuscripts of Leonardo da Vinci - and a lot of other things that truly excite and delight the soul andgaze.

Library of Canada

The still very young Library of Canada was formed only fourteen years ago through the merger of the Canadian Archives and the National Library in order to preserve and enhance the documentary sources of the culture and history of this country. Replenishment of funds regularly takes place at the expense of various donors, in addition, government organizations also send copies of books that have appeared.

Unlike the repositories mentioned above, the Canadian Archive Library is primarily specialized in its own country. It contains about forty-eight million copies of various publications (and not only), among which there is an incredible number of sources relating specifically to this state. Magazines, artifacts, children's literature, documents, films, maps, various manuscripts, photographs - in general, everything that is somehow connected with the history and culture of Canada.

Russian National Library

Everyone knows about the RSL - the Russian State Library in Moscow, but not everyone knows that St. Petersburg is also one of the lucky cities that can boast of having one of the largest libraries in the world. It is in the city on the Neva that the national library of our country is located, whose fund has about thirty-seven million items.

The St. Petersburg library received its current name relatively recently - in the early nineties of the pastcentury. And until then, as soon as she was not called! But most Russian citizens know this repository of literature under the unofficial name "Publicka". The construction of the Imperial Public Library (this is its first name) began at the end of the reign of Catherine the Great, but continued for almost a century and a half. At the beginning of its work, the library had about two hundred and sixty thousand books, only four (!) Of which were written in Russian. The development of the library, both in terms of increasing the number of books and the influx of readers, occurred in the middle of the nineteenth century, as a result of which the repository acquired a new building.

Since the middle of the last century, the National Library in St. Petersburg has been providing methodological assistance to libraries in various regions of our country. Many unique exhibits are stored within its walls, such as the Voltaire Library, the Ostromir Gospel, the Laurentian Chronicle and others.

Library of Japan

The National Diet Library is located in Tokyo and is the seventh largest library in the world. It was founded at the very end of the fifties of the twentieth century and has a fund of almost thirty-six million books. It is called the parliamentary library because it was originally intended for members of parliament.

Its main feature is that it houses the International Children's Literature Library, which stores about four hundred thousand volumes of books for young readers. In total, there is one in the Japanese librarycentral department and twenty-seven subsidiaries.

Danish Library

The Royal Library of Denmark is located in its very heart - in Copenhagen. It is one of the largest libraries in the world in general and in Scandinavia in particular. This is a very old library - it dates back to the middle of the seventeenth century. However, this literary repository became available for mass use only after more than a century.

The current name of the library has been twelve years. It is famous, in addition to the fact that all the works published in the country since the seventeenth century are stored there, also for the theft of more than three thousand books, which occurred in the seventies of the last century. Only at the beginning of this century did it become possible to find out who was guilty of the theft. Ironically, this man - he used to work in this very library - died in the same year.

French National Library

This is not only one of the largest libraries in the world, but also one of the oldest in Europe. For quite a long period of time, it was the personal library of the kings. Charlemagne is considered to be its founder, but after the death of the king, the collection was lost and sold out. Louis the 9th began to restore the vault again.

The national library, located in Paris, acquired a large volume of publications during the French Revolution. Then, by the way, it began to be called national. By the way, it was she who was one of the first in the world to digitize her funds - not all,but the most popular.

Ancient World Library

If everything is more or less clear with modernity, how was it in antiquity? After all, even then there was a need for such storage facilities. The largest library of the Ancient World can rightfully be called the library of Ashurbanipal, the Assyrian king who lived and ruled in the seventh century BC. He took seriously the matter of collecting and preserving books: he sent messengers-scribes to different settlements, who searched for ancient books and copied them. The Assyrian ruler called his collection "The House of Instructions and Advice". Unfortunately, a good part of the collection died in a fire, the rest is stored in Britain.

Interesting facts

The Library of Congress keeps a personal collection of books from Krasnoyarsk G. V. Yudin - about eighty thousand items.
Japanese law states that all Japanese publishers are required to send whatever they publish to the Diet Library.
The German National Library collects and archives all kinds of publications from around the world in German.
Ninety thousand audio and video files are stored in the Spanish Library.
The Ukrainian library is home to such rarities as Kyiv Glagolitic leaflets, the Orsha Gospel or Aristotle's History of Animals on parchment.

Here is only a brief account of just a few of the world's major libraries in history. Meanwhile, each of them - from those that are mentioned and those that are not mentioned above - is fraught with so much interesting history, so many unusual things … All of themdeserve the right to be known to as many people as possible.