Since 1958, the American Library Association (ALA) has sponsored National Library Week. This special period, which takes place across the United States each year in April and is wrapping up today, serves as “a time to celebrate our nation’s libraries, library workers’ contributions and promote library use and support,” according to the association’s website. While most people probably know libraries as places to borrow books, movies and whatnot, here are a few things you may not know about them…

1. The first libraries date back 4,500 years

That’s right, the people who stay on top of this stuff say that there were libraries in ancient times in the Fertile Crescent. Now, if you’re like me, you studied the Fertile Crescent in junior high school. And I must say that I don’t recall this library tidbit coming up in our lessons, but it’s an interesting thing to know nonetheless. The Fertile Crescent is also known for being “the birthplace of writing,” which in my mind, explains quite well why the first libraries appeared there as a means for archiving product inventories, transactions and the like. 

2. The United States has more public libraries than Starbucks stores

According to a recent survey, there are more than 16,000 libraries in the U.S., compared to about 15,000 Starbucks joints. Now, I find this fact particularly interesting because I can’t say there’s been a time where I’ve ventured into an unfamiliar town or city and noticed its local library before seeing its bustling Starbucks location. This total number of libraries also only refers to public libraries — in fact, there are multiple types of libraries beyond the “public” classification (e.g. university libraries), so that number is surely higher. The Starbucks number includes both company-owned and licensed stores. Odd. 

3. Not all libraries will just stand there stationary

Library taxonomists talk about various types of libraries, including circulating or lending libraries, which contain print and digital materials that are intended to be taken out of the building by users, or lent to other institutions; reference libraries, where materials are not lent out; and traveling libraries, which are precisely what the name implies (they’re typically lending libraries). The origins of traveling libraries can be traced back to President Franklin D. Roosevelt. As part of the New Deal, the Works Progress Administration created the Pack Horse Library Project of Eastern Kentucky — a group of librarians who were known for traversing the state of Kentucky with the intent of distributing reading materials and other library services to rural towns that were otherwise cut off from civilization during the Great Depression. 

4. The United States Library of Congress is the largest library in the world

Founded in 1800, the Library of Congress (LOC), is officially the research arm of Congress, and is effectively the national library. Its head honcho also has a pretty swell title: Librarian of Congress.

With more than 170 million items (!), it contains a motherlode of cool materials, including  the collections of past presidents such as Thomas Jefferson, whose personal library was purchased by the LOC in 1815 for $23,950 (roughly $441,000 today). It is also home to a very, very small book — Old King Cole — which is 1/25 of an inch by one 1/25 of an inch. (If you think that’s small, wait until you see the bookmark.)

5. You’re still a few centuries shy of the record for most overdue book

At most, that book you haven’t returned yet is in the hunt for second place, because the Guinness World Record  is currently held by the late Colonel Robert Walpole, who borrowed a book from the library at Sidney Sussex College in Cambridge, England in the 1660s. Said book was not returned until until 1956 — a shocking 288 years later — after it was found by Professor Sir John Plumb in a different library in Norfolk, England. To my surprise — and I think likely yours — there was no late fee incurred from this monumentally overdue book (although I’m not really sure how Walpole would have paid it from six feet under).