Museum Library

Famed across the known world, jealously guarded by private collectors, built up over centuries, destroyed in a single day, ornamented with gold leaf and frescoes, or filled with bean bags and children’s drawings - the history of the library is rich, varied, and stuffed full of incident.

Libraries are much more than mere collections of volumes. The best are magical, fabled places whose fame has become part of the cultural wealth they are designed to preserve. The Library is a celebration of books as objects, a celebration of the anthropology and physicality of books and bookish space, and an account of the human side of these hallowed spaces by a leading and passionate bibliophile.

On the morning of April 29, 1986, a fire alarm sounded in the Los Angeles Public Library. As the moments passed, the patrons and staff who had cleared out of the building realized this was not the usual false alarm. As one fireman recounted later, “Once that first stack got going, it was good-bye, Charlie.” The fire was disastrous: It reached 2,000 degrees and burned for more than seven hours. By the time it was extinguished, it had consumed 400,000 books and damaged 700,000 more.

Millions of people climb the grand marble staircase to visit the Metropolitan Museum of Art every year. But only a select few have unrestricted access to every nook and cranny. They’re the guards who roam unobtrusively in dark blue suits, keeping a watchful eye on the two million square foot treasure house. Caught up in his glamourous fledgling career at The New Yorker, Patrick Bringley never thought that he’d be one of them.

Best-selling author Daniel Kirk's Library Mouse was praised by Booklist as a "showstopper." In A Museum Adventure, Sam the library mouse and his friend Sarah visit a museum so that Sam can sketch in his explorer's journal. Sarah doesn't understand how explorers can possibly have the time - or the desire - to keep a journal. So Sam shows her how a journal can contain so much more than just writing. As the friends search the museum, they see many new things - and make an unexpected friend.

Gloriously rich and utterly delightful, Miss Peregrine’s Museum of Wonders is an indispensable guide to the peculiar world, perfect for longtime fans and new listeners alike. Covering everything from how to blend in with suspicious normals to the most popular time loops to visit as a temporal tourist, this essential volume is ideal for anyone curious about the world of Miss Peregrine: its strange history, curious practices, fascinating places, most famous (and infamous) names, and much more.

James Gleick, the author of the best sellers Chaos and Genius, now brings us a work just as astonishing and masterly: A revelatory chronicle and meditation that shows how information has become the modern era’s defining quality - the blood, the fuel, the vital principle of our world. The story of information begins in a time profoundly unlike our own, when every thought and utterance vanishes as soon as it is born.

In a race against time, behind enemy lines, often unarmed, a special force of American and British museum directors, curators, art historians, and others, called the Monuments Men, risked their lives scouring Europe to prevent the destruction of thousands of years of culture.

The Brutish Museums sits at the heart of a heated debate about cultural restitution, repatriation and the decolonisation of museums. Since its first publication, museums across the western world have begun to return their Bronzes to Nigeria, heralding a new era in the way we understand the collections of empire we once took for granted.

Abandoned in a library book-drop slot in the dead of winter, the small kitten who came to be known as Dewey Readmore Books miraculously endured the coldest night of the year. When librarian Vicki Myron found him in the morning, she wrapped him in her arms, gave him his first bath, and then introduced him to his new home: the library. Dewey charmed Spencer, Iowa’s library-goers, young and old, with his ability to know just which visitors needed a friend.

Welcome to the tyrannical city of Jewel, where impatience is a sin and boldness is a crime. Goldie Roth has lived in Jewel all her life. Like every child in the city, she wears a silver guardchain and is forced to obey the dreaded Blessed Guardians. She has never done anything by herself and won’t be allowed out on the streets unchained until Separation Day.

American Libraries editor in chief Leonard Kniffel offers a compelling collection of interviews with prominent figures--all of whom have special connections to libraries. From President Barack Obama to actress Julie Andrews; from basketball star Kareem Abdul-Jabbar to former First Lady and librarian Laura Bush and many others, stars of literature, politics, entertainment, and the public arena speak with Kniffel about the ways libraries have been critical in their lives.

Flight is the hilarious and tragic story of an orphaned Indian boy - "Zits" - who travels back and forth through time in a charged search for his true identity. With powerful, swift prose, Flight follows the troubled teenager as he learns that violence is not the answer.

The Art of Relevance is your guide to mattering more to more people. You'll find inspiring examples, rags-to-relevance case studies, research-based frameworks, and practical advice on how your work can be more vital to your community. Whether you work in museums or libraries, parks or theaters, churches or afterschool programs, relevance can work for you. Break through shallow connection. Unlock meaning for yourself and others. Find true relevance and shine.

Bonnie Montgomery is the world’s greatest detective. Not that anyone—other than Grampa Banks—has heard of her. But they will have heard of Montgomery Bonbon, the gentleman detective with the bristly mustache, fashionable beret, and accent that’s hard to place. Montgomery Bonbon is responsible for solving many high-stakes crimes, including unmasking the Emmental Bandit, restoring the Rusakova diamonds to their rightful owner, and busting an international owl-smuggling ring, resulting in the arrest of over twelve owls.

In June 2015 Alberto Manguel prepared to leave his centuries-old village home in France's Loire Valley and reestablish himself in a one-bedroom apartment on Manhattan's Upper West Side. Packing up his enormous, 35,000 volume personal library, choosing which books to keep, store, or cast out, Manguel found himself in deep reverie on the nature of relationships between books and readers, books and collectors, order and disorder, memory and reading.

The fascinating and little-known story of the Louvre, from its inception as a humble fortress to its transformation into the palatial residence of the kings of France and then into the world's greatest art museum.

Claire Wilcox has been a curator of fashion at the Victoria and Albert Museum for most of her working life. In Patch Work, she steps into the archive of memory, deftly stitching together her dedicated study of fashion with the story of her own life lived in and through clothes. From her mother's black wedding suit to the swirling patterns of her own silk kimono, her memoir unfolds in spare, luminous prose the spellbinding power of the things we wear.

The Psychic Lives of Statues explores both the toppling of colonial statues and the erection of postcolonial ones, illuminating how statues remain powerful and compelling forms of memorialization. Engaging with artists, scholars, and activists, Rao offers a fresh and exciting perspective on how we understand our past and present through iconography.

Dewey's Nine Lives offers nine funny, inspiring, and heartwarming stories about cats - all told from the perspective of "Dewey's Mom", librarian Vicki Myron. The amazing felines in this audiobook include Dewey, of course, whose further never-before-told adventures are shared, and several others Vicki found out about when their owners reached out to her.