Mosul’s Library Without Books
How the Mosul University Library — once home to books and documents dating to antiquity and destroyed by ISIS militants — is becoming the epicenter of Iraq’s cultural rebirth as the homemade mines are...
View ArticleKeepers of the Secrets
Who are the most interesting women and men in the world? The archivists, guardians of our forgotten stories. Read The Story
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Did You Happen to See the Most Interesting Man in the World? (He’s In Room 328)
Thomas Lannon is the Acting Charles J. Liebman Curator of Manuscripts at the New York Public Library, which is the fancy way of saying he oversees boxes of secrets: the personal documents of people...
View ArticleHow to Burn a Book
In an excerpt from “The Library Book” — inspired by a historic California library fire — Susan Orlean challenges her respect for the printed word with a match and a copy of ‘Fahrenheit 451.’ Read The...
View ArticleLife in the Stacks: A Love Letter to Browsing
“Algorithms are integral to how we find and consume art. But old-fashioned browsing still has its benefits.” Read The Story
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Reading Doesn’t Have to Mean Keeping Your Books Forever
As the son of a librarian and a college professor, I can’t remember much about my childhood that didn’t involve books. They were everywhere. Oversized illustrated ones, piled high in my arms as I...
View ArticleHave You Been to the Library Lately?
Nicholas Hune-Brown points out that libraries are the last truly public space. As such, their role has become so much more than just books: They are a social service. Libraries offer their community a...
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Librarians on the Front Lines: A Reading List for Library Lovers and Realists
This story was funded by our members. Join Longreads and help us to support more writers. I came to librarianship the way most other librarians do: I fell into it. After a full-time job that had...
View ArticleWhat Does It Mean to Protect Children?
Across the U.S., libraries are under attack. “Being a librarian is less and less about books and more and more about community survival,” Lisa Bubert wrote in a recent Longreads reading list. In a...
View ArticleThe Librarian Who Couldn’t Take It Anymore
Tania Galiñanes, a librarian at Tohopekaliga High School in Kissimmee, Florida, loves books. But with the spread of book bans across public schools in the state, she decided she’d had enough—and quit....
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Safety Net
This story was funded by our members. Join Longreads and help us to support more writers. Lisa Bubert | Longreads | February 27, 2024 | 3,584 words (13 minutes) It’s my turn to wake up Carmen. (No,...
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