Admont Abbey Library, Austria
The Admont Abbey library is known to be the largest and oldest remaining monastery library in the world. Founded over 1000 years ago in the Austrian region of Styria, the library has withstood turbulent periods in the region’s history.
Admont Abbey has elements of both Baroque and Gothic architecture. The interior is painted with art from the middle ages to present day and intricate frescos that adorn the ceiling. Today, the library houses one of the most important sacred texts in the world, with a collection of around 200,000 volumes.
Tianjin Binhai Library, china
China’s Tianjin Binhai public library has redefined the idea of what a library should look like with a futuristic structure. This space is fitted with floor to ceiling bookshelves that are built into the walls, acting as both stairs and seating area. In the middle of the library is a giant spherical auditorium designed to resemble a giant eye.
The Tianjin library is home to 1.2 million books placed on cave-like shelves. At the top, there are offices, meeting spaces and computer rooms.
Bibliotheca Alexandrina, Egypt
Also known as the Royal Library of Alexandria, this is Africa’s largest library and probably the most important library of the ancient world. Ancient scholars have claimed that at the height of its popularity, it contained up to 700,000 papyrus scrolls before its destruction.
Today, the library has a collection of about one million books, houses four museums, nineteen galleries, a conference centre, planetarium, multimedia library, a manuscript restoration laboratory, library for maps, records of the Egyptian political system like Pharaohs, architecture designs of the pyramids, a special library for the visually impaired and the world’s only copy and external backup of the Internet Archive.
Al-Qarawiyyin Library, Morroco
The al-Qarawiyyin library in Fez, Morocco is thought to be the world’s oldest library dating back to 859. The centre was founded by heiress Fatima al-Fihiri as a mosque and slowly evolved into a closed library for scholars and students of the university where it was housed.
Centuries later, a government intervention in 2012 started the restoration process of the library led by Fez-born architect Aziza Chaouni. The library houses a collection of 4000 rare books and ancient Arabic manuscripts written by scholars of the region. This includes a 9th century version of the Quran and a manuscript on Islamic jurisprudence written by philosopher Averroes.
The Library of Trinity College Dublin, Ireland
This Library of Trinity dates back to the establishment of the college in 1952. With a focus on research, the library supports learning needs across all disciplines of the college.
In its collection, is an estimated 6 million printed volumes with extensive journals, manuscripts, maps and music reflection over 400 years of academic development.
The Royal Portuguese Cabinet of Reading, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
The Real Gabinete Português de Leitura was founded by a group of forty-three Portuguese immigrants and political refugees, to promote and preserve the history between Brazil and Portugal. The building is one of the most beautiful architectural jewels in Rio de Janeiro, combining Gothic and Italian Renaissance elements.
The library has an estimated 350,000 copies of unique works from the 16th and 17th century, a collection of paintings from various Portuguese illustrators, a study centre where research work is carried out.
British Library, London
The British Library is the national Library of the United Kingdom and one of the world’s most significant libraries, holding more than 150 million items. This collection includes 25 million books and manuscripts that date back to 300 B.C.E.
The British library adds three million books every year as it receives nearly all books produced in the United Kingdom and foreign books distributed in the UK.
George Peabody Library, Maryland USA
The George Peabody library is not only a beautiful library but is also an essential space for research and teaching. The library contains 0ver 300,000 volumes from the 19th century including romance languages and literature, history of science, geography, exploration, architecture and so much more.
Baroque Library of Metten Abbey, Germany
The Baroque of Metten Abbey is an 18th-century library treasured for its rich history and captivating architecture. The library contains more than 150,000 volumes on philosophy, history and a 1434 handwritten volume of Gregorian chant on sheepskin parchment.
McMillan Library, Kenya
McMillan Memorial Library is the oldest in the Kenyan capital and the second oldest library nationally after the Seif bin Salim Library in Mombasa. Thanks to the Book Bunk team, the library is now focusing on Kenya with a goal to fill the shelves with African authors.
