Fun Facts – Page 2 – Know How, the blog of the Great Library

Spring has Sprung! The Books are Getting Clean!

As the winter melts and spring flowers bloom, many people take the opportunity to do a bit of spring cleaning. It’s no different here at the Great Library, where the increasing warmth and sunshine have inspired us to give our books some extra attention. Books gathered in one place tend to create a lot of dust. One of the duties of library workers is to make sure that the books (and the shelves) are cleaned every so often so that dust and other particles don’t cause damage, either to other books or to people’s lungs.

Have you ever wondered what the process is for cleaning library books? Well, look no further for the answer!

Of Ghosts, the Supernatural, and….Skepticism?

It’s that time of year again: when the leaves turn colour, the air gets cooler, the nights longer, and the librarians delve into our special collections to find the creepy and weird. This year, two librarians picked a title that sparked their interest and came up with two unique books: one discussing the various types of ghosts, monsters, and fae creatures, and one musing on the supernatural. Each description is written in the librarian’s own voice.

Library Hand(s)

Many people are surprised (and delighted) to learn that the library has held on to our old card catalogue and cabinets (unmaintained, of course). While some of our library regulars will be familiar with the cabinet kept in the Reference Office of the library, a better kept secret is the second cabinet housed in closed stacks. I’m particularly partial to the latter because, unlike the cards held in the Reference Office cabinet, its cards are hand-written.

Rifling through the many cards in this cabinet of mysteries, I begin to notice the differences in the handwriting, which, of course, makes sense for a library in existence since 1827; we’ve had quite a few staff members come and go in our almost 200 years. I also begin to wonder if I would see any evidence of “library hand”…