As part of National Library Week, we would like to celebrate and highlight different parts of our WSU Vancouver Library. One of our display cases provides a glimpse at many aspects of libraries and throughout this week we will focus on several of those. Let’s start with the facts, ma’am…

Some facts about libraries and National Library Week:

National Library Week is a national observance, started in 1958, that celebrates the contributions of our nation’s libraries and librarians.

There are an estimated 123,291 libraries of all kinds in the United States today. Approximately 3% (or 3,653) are academic libraries. The three largest libraries (by number of volumes held) are:

1. Library of Congress 32,124,001
2. Harvard University 15,826,570
3. Boston Public Library 15,686,902

The library work force includes librarians and other professionals, paraprofessionals, clerical and technical personnel. On Tuesday, April 15, we celebrate National Library Workers Day. There are more than 400,000 people who work in the nation’s libraries. In 2006, there were 229,000 librarians, 119,000 library assistants, and 113,940 library technicians.

Academic librarians answer 72.8 million reference questions each year—almost twice the attendance at college football games.

Take a look at the display in the large case near the Circulation desk to see a “how to” on the art of archiving – the cataloging, storage and making available for retrieval of documents, books, photos, videos, in digital form.

Yes! The American Intercollegiate Football Association had its first game in 1876 – for more details check out the Thanksgiving: the Early Years display. The small display case features the earliest proclamations on how Thanksgiving became a day for celebrating, with thanks, for all we have in this country. It features a few books from the March of America Facsimile Series, journals of early Americans, written in the 17th & 18th centuries.

…Doesn’t Mean It Isn’t There is the theme of the current display in the large display case (next to the library bulletin board.) Through the library’s databases and catalog, students have online access to over 220 additional reference books.

• Major 21st Century Writers
• The Oxford Companion to World Exploration
• American Masculinities: A HISTORICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA
• Encyclopedia of American Urban History