Three Libraries With Unique Non-Book Collections

It’s not news to any frequent library user that they are great resources for more than books. From online collections to board games and birdwatching kits, libraries offer more than books for patrons. Non-book collections are not rare or uncommon; however, there are some libraries where non-book items are a unique and significant portion of their collections.

Unlike museums or archives, where specimens and objects of significance are often not directly accessible to the public, these libraries have interesting items that are routinely available to non-researchers. Read on to learn more about the university library where patrons used to check out ravens for Edgar Allen Poe presentations, the forestry lab with a card catalog filled with wood, and the seed library dedicated to preserving and planting rare varieties of plants.

Alaska Resources Library and Information Services (ARLIS) at the University of Alaska Anchorage, Anchorage, AK

At the University of Alaska Anchorage, a relatively nondescript room holds cataloged boxes containing “furs, mounts, [and] skulls” collected from various sources, including the Alaska Department of Fish and Game and private donations. While many libraries and museums contain wildlife specimens, ARLIS’s collection is unique in that, for many decades, the public could check out specimens simply by having a library card. Librarians reported that the taxidermy animals were used by everyone from props directors to science teachers and locals who needed decorations for a party.

Unfortunately, the collection is no longer available for public checkout after dangerous levels of arsenic and lead were measured in the items. Fortunately, ARLIS still has a wide variety of texts and digital resources related to Alaskan history that are available to patrons.

Heritage Seed Library, Ryton Gardens, Coventry, United Kingdom

While seed vaults to preserve varieties of seeds from disaster exist worldwide, the Heritage Seed Library is unique in that once it has enough variety, seeds are made available to the public for cultivation. Based in Coventry, UK, the library “maintains the national collection of heritage vegetables and conserves vegetable varieties that are not widely available.” The Heritage Seed Library collects seeds from members, who can then pick six seed types from the list of varieties that are made publicly available each year for their own use.

It is estimated that the library holds approximately 800 seed varieties.

Forest Products Laboratory Library, Madison, WI

The Forest Products Laboratory Library is run by the Forest Service through the U.S. Department of Agriculture and is housed in the Forest Products Laboratory in Madison, Wisconsin. While the library has many items traditionally found in an academic special library, such as books, digital collections, and access to online databases, it also offers the “Wood Identification Public Service,” thanks to its extensive catalog of wood samples.

Provided by the Center for Wood Anatomy Research, the identification service allows U.S. citizens to send samples of wood to the library for identification. These are compared to the library’s samples, which are stored card catalog style, to help identify the wood type.

Interested in exploring more unique library collections? Head on over to our library archives!

The following comes to you from the Editorial Desk.

We love a good cover, and this week, we’re highlighting a list of the best short story covers. Trust us when we say that these will look so demure on your bookshelves!

Read on for an excerpt and become an All Access member to unlock the full post.

In the course of writing about great book covers, there’s one thing that I’ve noted several times: short story collections have some of the most innovative, memorable, and eye-catching covers of them all. Why is that? Perhaps part of it is because short story collections are a harder sell to the average reader, so the first line of marketing has to be for the bookshop browser, whether they’re perusing on or off line. Perhaps part of it is that many great short story collections are coming from smaller presses, so pushing boundaries with design is part of what’s possible because there are fewer stakeholders to please in the process. Perhaps it’s also simply that short story collections, by nature of their diversity, invite more creativity into the cover design process.

Whatever the reason or reasons, I suspect anyone who appreciates a good book cover is here for it.

Let’s take a look at some of the banging short story book covers that have hit shelves this year, as well as look at some of the upcoming covers of collections you’ll want to pop on your TBR ASAP. If you’re reading this when the piece publishes in mid-May, know you’ll be reading it in time to partake in Short Story Month, too. Any month can be short story month, of course, but May gives extra reason to dive into bite-sized fiction.

As always, caveats abound here. It is still unnecessarily difficult to track down cover designers and artists for book covers, especially if you don’t have the book in your hand to double-check. Many publishers still don’t put this information on the landing pages for these books, so it takes good Googling and a lot of luck to dig up names to credit.

Autocorrect by Etgar Keret, translated by Jessica Cohen and Sondra Silverston (May 27) If you’re looking for a collection of darkly funny stories, this cover is not going to steer you in the wrong direction. It’s a squirrel that’s clearly been launched right into the book title, and he looks completely unfazed by it all. There’s a lot of nice movement in this design, especially as it is very simplistic.

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