Everyone who has ever checked out a book will love this affectionate and fact-filled account of how libraries have evolved. Award-winning librarian and children's author Maureen Sawa takes us on a breathless ride from the legendary Library of Alexandria to modern virtual libraries that exist only in cyberspace. Along the way, we stop to meet dozens of unforgettable book lovers, including a Persian nobleman who carried his collection on the backs of five hundred camels that he'd taught to walk in alphabetical order and the industrialist Andrew Carnegie, who gave away 80 percent of his wealth establishing free public libraries throughout the English-speaking world.
But this isn't just the story of books and book collectors. Sawa also shows us how libraries are bound up with all the greatest achievements of the civilized world, from the invention of the alphabet and the discovery of paper to the emergence of the printing press. Her lively and informative text is all the proof any reader will ever need that libraries—past, present, and future—have a story as fascinating as the books they house.
This truly is a book that's long overdue!
—from the dust jacket
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