News Flash • Animal Ambassadors Headed to South Branch

February is National Library Lovers Month and your library is partnering with the Abilene Zoo to offer a great family event to show the community why you should love libraries too. Join us on Wednesday, February 14 at 11:00AM for a special storytime event where our friends from the zoo will bring in some animal ambassadors for youth to get the chance to meet and hear stories about armadillos and snakes! Come out early and participate in our Coloring Club session, which starts at 10:00AM. There may even be some animal masks to color and wear.

At this particular event, a couple animal friends will love to meet you, and the zoo animal visits have always been a popular event at your library that many families, and of course kids, simply love. This will be your time to enjoy both city services at your library, on Valentine’s Day, during the month designated to those who love libraries.

Here’s a few fun facts about libraries that might interest you:

• Andrew Carnegie, a philanthropist, was known as the father of libraries after donating $60 million to open more than 1,689 public libraries worldwide in the early 20th century. One of those libraries served the Abilene community before the present-day Main Library opened in 1960.
• The U.S. has the largest library in the world. The Library of Congress houses more than 168 million items. Now that’s a collection.
• The word “library” comes from the Latin word ‘liber’ for ‘book’ or ‘document,’ which can be found in ‘libraria’ for ‘collection of books’ and ‘librarium’ for ‘container of books.’. The earliest form of archiving came about in 2600 B.C. in Sumer, organizing clay tablets.
• Benjamin Franklin was credited with starting the first lending library, his own, in 1731 due to his love for reading.
• Franklin’s Library Company in Philadelphia, PA required a subscription fee to use, but the oldest public library opened in 1790 in Franklin, MA where residents circulated books donated by Benjamin Franklin.
• At one point in history, librarians had to develop a particular style of handwriting, known as “librarian hand,” to ensure card catalogs were legible in the late 1800s.