Library Trivia

Library trivia that is smart, strange, silly, and spooky. A variety of library facts to expand your mind and impress your friends and family!

If you stumble across a forgotten library book that’s been hiding on your shelf for weeks, month, or even years, don’t be afraid to return it. In 2015, a former student at Wakefield High School in Virginia sent back a copy of the ‘The Underside of the Leaf’. It was borrowed in 1981 and accidentally mixed in with the student’s family collection.

In 2016, the granddaughter of a man who had taken out ‘The Microscope and Its Revelations’ from Hereford Cathedral School in the UK returned the title 120 years after it had been “borrowed”.

Among the more popular genres in prison libraries: paranormal romance, young adult titles, and the ‘Left Behind’ series.

Some Libraries went to extraordinary lengths to make sure their titles remained on the shelves. At Marsh’s Library in Dublin, Ireland visitors hoping to peruse rare books in the 18th century were locked in cages until they were done reading.

Texas is home to a gigantic Walmart-turned-Library. The McAllen Public Library in McAllen, Texas is housed in a converted Walmart location and might be the largest single-story library location in the country. The 124,000 square-foot space has a computer lab, a café, and a 180-seat auditorium.

Not all libraries require silence. The Tikkurila Library in Vantaa, Finland installed a karaoke room in 2016 with thousands of songs for guests to perform. (Finland is home to a lot of karaoke-loving citizens.) Fortunately, all that warbling doesn’t rise to the level of a disruption: THE ROOM IS SOUNDPROOF.

There is a library in Alaska that once had a taxidermy collection. Patrons of the Alaska Resources Library and Information Services in Anchorage could borrow from the site’s collection of taxidermy items; including animals, bones, and furs. Now all requests are handled through the Alaska Department of Fish and Game.

A Yale University Library allowed stressed-out students to borrow a therapy dog. The Lillian Goldman Law Library at Yale University used to allow patrons to check out General Montgomery, a.k.a. Monty, a terrier mix certified therapy dog for 30 minutes of companionship. Sadly, Monty has since passed away.

Library books can be full of surprises and covered in them, too. If you’re wondering how dirty library books can become after passing through many hands the answer is: pretty dirty. Everything from traces of cocaine to the herpes virus to bud bugs has been found on sampled pages. But don’t worry, because while there have been plenty of instances in history where people feared that books spread disease, there’s never been a documented case of anyone catching anything from a library book. This included COVID. Study after study was completed and they could find no instance of COVID being transmitted by books.

Vermont is home to a library that stretches across the U.S. Border to Canada. The Haskell Free Library and Opera House sits directly on the border between the United States and Canada. Both Americans and Canadians can enter and use the library, even crossing over the (literal) border line running through the building, but can only leave the library back into their country of citizenship, or risk fines.

Bats dig libraries too. The Joanina Library at the University of Coimbra in Portugal has a number of bats in residence, but no one is calling for an exterminator. The bats prey on insects that could damage book pages. Staff drapes tables with coverings overnight and clean up the guano in the morning.

The New York Public Library offers up more than just books. Members can borrow accessories like neckties and briefcases, making it ideal for people looking to complete an ensemble for a job interview.

Those late fees for unreturned items can add up. Libraries in larger cities can accrue millions in unpaid penalties. In 2016, the San Jose Public Library reported $6.8 million in delinquent fees, with 39 percent of members owing money. Some places will refer debts to collection agencies if a patron exceeds $10 in charges.

Then again, not all libraries institute late fees. In an attempt to get back lost books and encourage residents to visit more often, New York’s public library systems announced in October 2021 that they would be eliminating all late fees – a move which subsequently boosted visitor rates and resulted in thousands of overdue or lost items being returned.

You can learn a lot from a library. Now you know more about libraries.