i know i've posted about libraries before, but meh..

tell me about your library and the best library you've ever been to. or weird library stories or anything library-esque

the best library i've been to was the bodleian in oxford. i got to see all the behind the scenes stuff as i went for a job interview there (which i screwed up by being enormously nervous). the library is connected to another library by underground tunnels (formerly connecting all the oxford uni buildings in the town centre). to take books from one library to another there's this underground mine-shaft like system with big metal carts that they put the books in to send up. it was the coolest thing

also i like the british library a lot, especially the periodicals one in colindale. i sat next to robert kilroy silk in there!

i'd reallylike to visit the library of congress and the one at the natural history museum. and a prison library, which i may be doing next month.

all sorts of exciting places have libraries, like the houses of parliament, scotland yard, kew gardens, london zoo, windsor castle. i think 'the royal librarian' has a good ring to it..

Old universities always have cool libraries, like Princeton and Harvard. The books in there are hundreds of years old. There are also places underneath the main library, which are said to be haunted by spirits of students past. I worked in an old school library and actually felt the presence of spirits. Coolness.

i'd love to see harvard and yale's libraries.

i work for a very new library. the university itself is quite old, but the campus and buildings are all very new. it has some advantages but sometimes it just doesn't feel as a library should. in fact we're not even supposed to call it a library, it's a 'learning resources centre' (i answer the phone with that and about a quarter of people say 'oh, sorry, i wanted the library'...

the uni has another library in central london which is really cool though. it's all quite old apart from a big etching of jimi hendrix- it was the site of his first UK gig. which is pretty odd.

i want to go to these places


somewhere in the hague


rio de janeiro


klosterneuberg

wow - those look gorgeous!
my friend goes to Glasgow University and thier library is slowly sliding down a hill

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Said Hamlet to Ophelia,
I'll draw a sketch of thee,
What kind of pencil shall I use?
2B or not 2B?

I've gotta ask... have you seen Party Girl?

Those pictures are nuts, I want to go to those libraries too!

oh dear!
Reading university library is sinking. rather unfortunately a lot of their most valuable stuff (special collections, rare books, old periodicals) was in the basement. post a huge flood I think it's all on the 5th floor.

I haven't seen party girl. I should though

wow they are beautiful! it reminds me of in beauty and the beast but even more beautiful

libraries are most sexual.

but, those^ libraries. wow.

more pix, plz.

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when that bitch breathes, the air comes out crooked.

I love libraries so much I decided to work in one?

its auctually so ugly.. its like this giant white pyramid. really. ahah its pretty bad..

and yeah. turns out it wasnt so great working at one, as it was just being at one, looking at books and such.

can't say as that I've been to many cool libraries though.. I guess the one in canada's parliament building is pretty cool? haha.

those pictures are gorgeous though. make my big white pyramid look even more dreadful.

become a researcher instead
i like my job, it's really good. it's just an ugly building.

Hahaha that's exactly what I though of too! I always loved the library on Beauty and the Beast!

I work in a library, it's nothing spectacular like those ones but I love it!

ah ah ah! that spiral staircase is like a lump in the pants!!!

ahem, anyways. i wish i visited libraries when visiting.

i don't think i've ever been to a really cool library. but i thought the one in hogwarts from harry potter was neat.

does anyone know if harvard's library is only open to harvard students? i think i'd like to visit the place.

those are really hot.
christ, i think i actually mean that.

anyway. i have been going to my local library probably since i could walk. or maybe before that, my mum used to get books and put them around my cot for me to look at.
it's in this little seaside suburb called St. Heliers and the library used to be really like, oldy-worldy. i was a bit miffed when they finally caught up with technology. it still looks really old from the outside though, so that's nice.

the BEST library, however, is the Central City library. it's like four storeys or something (i'm sure someone will correct me on this). there's a nice area up the top for sitting and reading alone. ah, lovely.

I do love the Bodleian... I used to love working in the Upper Rad Cam. I loved the fact it was circular and that you climbed these little winding staircases to get up to the galleries. Did you know that there used to be Bod boys and girls whose jobs were to scurry round the underground tunnels getting books? They used to do it from 12-14 after which they got to go to the uni for free. The Taylorian was quite nice too. I loved the way you could just stack request any book ever published too. I once stack requested my favourite book as a child and read it there. You could even stack request back issues of Playboy from the 1950s. Can't say I ever did that one. Got to love copyright libraries.

I quite like my current college library too. Its got huge windows and giant leather armchairs by them to sit and read in. The only downside is the computers for looking stuff up on have these crazy rubber keyboards (so they make no noise) which are impossible to type you. You have to one-finger pound your book title in.... I'm also a member of Senate House Library, which bizarrely gives me access to a library called the Harry Price Library of Magical Literature, which sounds like something out of Harry Potter. I'm intrigued and quite want to see it but they are very mysterious about it. I'm not sure if its an actual library you can visit, or a collection of books under lock and key that you can stack request named items from....

That sounds immensely cool. I'd love to go to Oxford someday - I plan to visiti there when I go to England. I didn't know there were underground tunnels connecting all the uni buildings... do they let the public into them (like on public tours, ect?)

The SF public library is pretty cool. I lost my library card tho, and haven't bothered to go get a new one... I should, I suppose. *makes a note*

The library here smells like the 70s..its hard to explain.

I haven't been inside, but the Staadsbibliothek in Berlin looks absolutely stunning.
I loved the Brotherton Library at leeds uni, especially the American Literature section that had books there that noone had touched since the 60s. I always got a good feeling looking for books in there for some unknown reason, as though I was surrounded by all this obscure knowledge (I know that makes me sound criminally geeky) but onceI got lost in the basement and couldn't get out. It's a circular library and highly confusing when you are tired.

i'm fairly sure that was the bodeleian library. i think they even told me that when we were looking around. there's a room with old books that gets filmed a lot

mockingbird- a lot of the tunnels are blocked up now i think. i don't think they are open to visitors but i might be wrong

there's plenty of other cool stuff in oxford though!