100th Anniversary of Alberta Libraries Act

The Peace Library System is proud to mark the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the passing of the Alberta Libraries Act by offering these 100 facts about libraries, books and all things related.

1. The Alberta Libraries Act was passed March 15, 1907.
2. There were 2.79 items in stock per capita served in Alberta public libraries in 2006.
3. There are 227 public library boards in Alberta.
4. Only 56 communities in Alberta do not provide library services (Many are summer communities).
5. 1.8% of the population of Alberta does not have access to library services.
6. Libraries have existed since about 1,300 BC.
7. The library at Alexandria, Egypt was founded around 300 BC.
8. The Guttenberg press replaced hand-written books in the 1400s.
9. There are over eight million (8,347,177) books in Alberta's public libraries as of 2006.
10. Harvard University is the oldest library in the United States.
11. There are 314 public libraries in Alberta.
12. Andrew Carnegie helped fund the construction of thousands of libraries in Canada and the United States.
13. The first books were written on Papyrus (made from the Papyrus plant).
14. Albertans asked 2,928,641 online reference questions in 2006.
15. Melvil Dewey developed the Dewey Decimal System to classify and organize books.
16. Melvil Dewey published his pamphlet on library classification in 1876.
17. Albertans borrowed 32,336,012 items from public libraries in 2006.
18. Dewey System: 500s – Natural Science
19. Libraries services are the responsibility of Alberta Municipal Affairs and Housing.
20. Harvard University is home to the largest university library collection in the United States.
21. The National Library of Canada was created on January 1, 1953.
22. The Atwater Library in Montreal is Canada’s oldest lending library.
23. There are four types of libraries: public, school, academic and special.
24. Albertans asked 4,648,281 in-house reference questions in 2006.
25. Dewey System: 600s – Applied Science
26. The prisoners in the Theresienstadt Concentration Camp in Nazi Germany maintained a library.
27. The Gutenberg Bible was the first Bible printed from movable type.
28. Mark Twain's The Adventures of Tom Sawyer was the first novel to be written on a typewriter.
29. The 4th Harry Potter Book holds the record of the largest first printing.
30. There are 7 library systems in Alberta (not including Calgary and Edmonton).
31. Marcel Proust’s Remembrance of Things Past is the world’s longest novel.
32. MARC coding was introduced in 1965.
33. Alberta libraries annually circulate 10.83 items per capita from public libraries.
34. The New York Public Library is the largest public library in the world.
35. St. Jerome is the patron saint of libraries.
36. Laura Bush, wife of US President George Bush, is a librarian.
37. Before 200 BC the Greeks and Romans used wax tablets for their correspondence.
38. The first paper was made in China in 150 BC.
39. The National Library of Britain was created in 1753.
40. The Library of Congress in Washington was founded in 1800.
41. The Library of Congress is the largest library in the world.
42. Braille type was invented in 1829.
43. Provincial operating grants to public libraries in Alberta were $15,970,463 in 2006.
44. The book binding sewing machine was invented in 1832.
45. The first paperback book was printed in Germany in 1841.
46. The first Newbery Medal for children’s books was awarded in 1921.
47. The World Copyright Union was founded in Geneva in 1952.
48. There were 1,539 FTE employees in public libraries in Alberta in 2006.
49. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is one of the most challenged books in the US.
50. The current Vatican Library was founded in 1448.
51. Thomas Jefferson’s personal collection of books was the nucleus of the Library of Congress.
52. The Bible is the best selling book of all time with more than 6 billion copies sold.
53. Valley of the Dolls is arguably the 10th best selling book of all time.
54. The ISBN system was developed in the 1960s.
55. As of 2001, The Poky Little Puppy was the best selling hard cover children’s book of all time.
56. Dewey Decimal System: 200s – Religion
57. The Library of Congress classification system was developed in 1897.
58. The Toronto Public Library is the largest public library system in Canada.
59. The TRAC system had 2,849,102 holdings in its database as of June 20, 2007.
60. The first Pulitzer Prize was awarded in 1917.
61. Public libraries/systems in Alberta spent $16,312,711 on library materials in 2006.
62. The Governor General’s Literary Awards were created in 1936.
63. The first winner of the GGs award for English language literature was Think of the Earth.
64. Canada’s Giller Prize was first awarded in 1994.
65. There are over 100,000 libraries in the United States.
66. Dewey Decimal System: 900s – History and Geography
67. Americans spend more than 3x as much on salty snacks as they do on libraries.
68. The first bookmobile was supposedly created by British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli in 1859.
69. Andrew Carnegie had donated $56 million to building libraries by 1919.
70. Approximately 5.4 million items per day are circulated in US libraries.
71. There are over 16 million books in the world’s libraries.
72. There are almost three times as many libraries in Canada as McDonald’s restaurants.
73. Reference librarians in Canada answer more than 350,000 questions weekly.
74. Over 153 million books are circulated in Canada’s public libraries each year.
75. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has distributed about 26,000 computers to libraries in the US and da since its inception.
76. The first Coretta Scott King Book award was presented in 1970.
77. Ryerson Press (now McGraw Hill Ryerson) was the first publishing house in Canada.
78. Famous librarians include Casanova, Mao Tse-Tung and Pope Pius XI.
79. The first library card catalogue system reputedly appeared in Paris in 1789.
80. In terms of holdings, Grande Prairie Public Library is the largest library in the TRAC system.
81. Calgary has the largest public library system in Alberta.
82. In 1964 a paper was read to the International Federation of Library Associations (IFLA) called chanization and Automation in American Libraries.” The first discussion about computers in libraries.
83. The first novel to win a Pulitzer Prize was In His Family by Ernest Poole in 1918.
84. The Diamond Sutra, found in China, is reputed to be the world’s oldest printed, dated book. It was created in AD 868.
85. It is estimated that 25% of the books in Iraq’s National Library and Archives were destroyed or stolen in the first days of the Iraq war. Many were rare titles.
86. In terms of holdings, Brownvale is the smallest library in the TRAC system.
87. Over 25 million copies of The Diary of Anne Frank have been sold and it has been translated into over 30 languages.
88. The first author to tour with Peace Library System was the late, the Hon. Grant MacEwan, historian, writer and the former Lieutenant Governor of Alberta.
89. The Peace Library System has the largest service area in terms of land mass: over 20 million hectares.
90. The first book published in Canada, a government report, was printed in Halifax in 1752.
91. As of 2000, Charlotte’s Web was the best selling children’s paperback book of all time.
92. Parkland is Alberta’s oldest regional library system. It was formed in 1959.
93. The Nobel Prize for literature was created in 1901.
94. The first winner of the Nobel Prize for literature was Sully Prudhomme a French poet and essayist.
95. The annual IMPAC Dublin Award is the largest literary prize at £100,000 ($212,000 Canadian).
96. The Peace Library System’s in-house collection was once the property of the University of Alberta Extension Library.
97. The University of Alberta Extension Library was created in 1913 on a budget of $600 per year.
98. The Library Book Rate (which allows libraries to mail books to each other at a low cost) was introduced in 1939.
99. The Ask a Question program (AAQ) in Alberta was asked over 7,500 questions in 2006.
100. The Alberta Library was founded in 1997.

Sources:

• www.cla.org
• www.ibiblio.org
• www.xs4all.nl/~knops
• www.aud.lib.logan.k12.ky.us
• www.ala.org
• www.veronaonlinecom/ypl/library/facts
• www.historymagazine.com : Survivor: The History of Libraries
• www.libraryspot.com
• www.municipalaffairs.gov.ab.ca/lcvs_library_statistics.htm
• www.rferl.org/featuresarticle
• www.pch.gc.ca (Canadian Heritage)