10 of the Most Beautiful School Libraries

January 7, 2017

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School libraries are a place where you are (usually) looking for peace, calm, concentration and inspiration, so if your shcool library looks like this, how will it impact your work there? Below is the 10 of the most beautiful school library in the world.

1.The University of Coimbra General Library, Coimbra, Portugal

The University of Coimbra General Library (Biblioteca Geral da Universidade de Coimbra) is the central library of the University of Coimbra, in Coimbra, Portugal.

Even before 1537, the year when the university was definitively established in Coimbra, transferred for its last time from Lisbon, a library was already in operation in the city. It was called Livraria de Estudo (Study Library). Based on the inventories of 1513 and 1532, more than 120 manuscript volumes were stored at the library. After the university refounding of 1537, the Livraria de Estudo was reinstalled and opened for students and professors, 4 hours a day. The statutes of 1559 already determined 6 hours of functioning a day, and the statutes of 1571 and 1597 called it livraria pública para lentes, estudantes e quaisquer pessoas outras (public library for lecturers, students and everybody else). In 1705 the library was closed and about 20 years later a new library was established-–the Biblioteca Joanina (Joanina Library, named after King João V). By the reform which occurred in 1901, the library was renamed Biblioteca Central da Universidade (Central Library of the University).

The current designation of the library, Biblioteca Geral da Universidade de Coimbra, came in 1924, and its current main building is from 1962. The library is divided in two buildings:

The Biblioteca Joanina (books before 1800)
The main centre Edifício Novo (the New Building, 1962) with over a million books ranging almost every possible field of study, 4 floors and over 7000 m2.

2.Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University, New Haven, CT

The Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library is the rare book library and literary archive of the Yale University Library in New Haven, Connecticut. Situated on Yale University’s Hewitt Quadrangle, the building was designed by Gordon Bunshaft of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill and completed in 1963.

The library’s iconic building reopened in September 2016 after an 18-month closure for major renovations, which included replacing the building’s HVAC system and expanding teaching and exhibition capabilities.

3.University of Salamanca Library, Salamanca, Spain

The University of Salamanca (Spanish: Universidad de Salamanca) is a Spanish higher education institution, located in the city of Salamanca, west of Madrid, in the autonomous community of Castile and León. It was founded in 1134 and given the Royal charter of foundation by King Alfonso IX in 1218. It is the oldest founded university in Spain and the third oldest university in the world in continuous operations. The formal title of “University” was granted by King Alfonso X in 1254 and recognized by Pope Alexander IV in 1255.

4.The Trinity College Library, aka “The Long Room,” Dublin, Ireland

The Library of Trinity College Dublin serves Trinity College and the University of Dublin. It is the largest library in Ireland and, as a legal deposit or “copyright library”, it has rights to receive material published in the Republic of Ireland free of charge; it is also the only Irish library to hold such rights for the United Kingdom. The Library is the permanent home to the famous Book of Kells. Two of the four volumes are on public display, one opened to a major decorated page and the other to a typical page of text. The volumes and pages shown are regularly changed.^[2] Members of the University of Dublin also have access to the libraries of Tallaght Hospital and the Irish School of Ecumenics, Milltown.

5.Old Library, St. John’s College, Cambridge University, Cambridge, UK

The Old Library of St John’s College, Cambridge connects to Third Court, and was built between 1623 and 1628, largely through the donations and efforts of two members of the College, the Bishop of Exeter, Valentine Carey and John Williams, Lord-Keeper and Bishop of Lincoln.

When the College first opened in 1516, its Library was situated in what was then the College’s only court, First Court. It occupied the first floor to the south of the Great Gate. Just over 100 years later, the Master of St John’s received notification from Bishop Carey that Bishop John Williams, while not wishing to ‘be counted the builder or founder’ of a new library, was prepared to be a ‘contributor towardes it’.

The building’s shell was completed in 1624, a date which appears on the south gable of the western oriel window. The building is constructed in the Jacobean Gothic style, and measures 110 feet by 30 feet wide. The tall two-light windows are a very early example of Gothic Revival, but the façade is Renaissance-inspired. The library contains 42 bookcases arranged at right angles to the north and south walls, and is the home of the College’s double-manual harpsichord.

6.Philological Library of the Free University, Berlin, Germany

The Philological Library (German: Philologische Bibliothek) is a component of the “Rust and Silver Lodges” complex in the main campus of the Freie Universität Berlin. It was designed by internationally known architect Norman Foster, Baron Foster of Thames Bank in the shape of a human brain, and opened in 2005. The library merges the separate smaller libraries of the departments and institutes of humanities and now contains:

General and Comparative literature
Byzantine/ Modern Greek studies
English studies
German studies
Comparative and Indo-European Linguistics
Classics
Dutch Linguistics and Literature
Indian Linguistics and Literature/ South Asian Studies
Latin American Studies
Medieval Latin Language and Literature
Philosophy (since 2007)
Romance studies
Slavic studies

It has become the centerpiece of the university’s Dahlem campus and a Berlin architectural landmark.

7.Central Library, University of Technology, Delft, Netherlands

The library is designed for the Delft University of Technology (also known as TU Delft). It is the central library for the campus and is located across from an auditorium that was built in 1966 by Van Den Broek & Bakema. The design of the auditorium was considered a brutalist style, because it is an awkward looking building that resembles a giant frog according to Mecanoo.

Instead of designing a building that contrasts this eye-catching auditorium, Mecanoo designed the library as a sloped plane, extending the grass from the ground to the very edge of the roof.

8.The Harper Library Reading Room, University of Chicago, Chicago

9.George Peabody Library, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD

The George Peabody Library, formerly known as the Library of the Peabody Institute, is the 19th-century focused research library of The Johns Hopkins University. It is located on the Peabody campus at West Mount Vernon Place in the Mount Vernon-Belvedere historic cultural neighborhood north of downtown Baltimore, Maryland, across from the landmark Washington Monument. The collections are available for use by the general public, in keeping with the famous Baltimorean merchant/banker/financier/philanthropist George Peabody’s goal to create a library “for the free use of all persons who desire to consult it.”