10 Famous Libraries to Put on Your Bucket List

Book lovers, academics, and architecture buffs alike will appreciate the stunning George Peabody Library stack room, featuring five tiers of ornamental cast-iron balconies rising to a skylight 61 feet high and enclosing some 300,000 volumes.

Formerly known as the Library of the Peabody Institute of the City of Baltimore, the library is home to a collection dating as far back as 1857. Now located on the Mt Vernon Campus of Johns Hopkins University, the extensive collection includes topics ranging from religion, British art, architecture, history and topography; American history, biography and literature, and Romance languages and literature to science, geography, exploration, and travel.

Learn more about the George Peabody Library’s history and plan your trip today.

One of the oldest libraries in Europe, the Bodleian Library at Oxford is also one of the largest library services in all of Europe, and you’ve probably seen pictures of the gorgeous reading rooms floating across “dark academia” themed Pinterest aesthetics. Parts of the Bodleian Library’s architecture can be traced back to the 15th century, but it was first opened to scholars in 1602. “The Bod,” as many Oxford scholars call it, is home to over 13 million printed items and houses an outstanding collection of rare books, manuscripts, classical papyri, maps, art, music, and printed ephemera. 

One of the oldest copies of Shakespeare’s First Folio was kept in Duke Humfrey’s Reading Room within the Bodleian Library, and is still in its original binding with the Bodleian Library shelfmark torn from the first page.

Aside from the rich history of the Bodleian libraries and their architecture, they happen to be located on the Oxford campus, and, really, what bookworm hasn’t pictured themselves strolling through these hallowed halls? 

The world’s largest—and arguably most gorgeous—monastery library halls, located in Admont, Austria, features captivating frescoes across the domed ceiling designed to model the stages of human knowledge, from thought and speech to the sciences, and culminating in the center dome with a depiction of divine revelation. 

In fact, the entire library was designed with the Enlightenment ideals of Baroque architect Josef Hueber, and completed in 1776. Among the collections from various intellectual and creative fields are the carved linen wood sculptures, the “Four Last Things,” created by Josef Stammel, depicting Death, Judgement, Heaven, and Hell, which contrast the enlightened concept of the rest of the library.

Look familiar? You may recognize the Admont Abbey Library hall as the inspiration for the enchanting library featured in Disney’s animated film Beauty and the Beast (1991). For close-ups of the stunning frescoes, visit the Abbey's website linked here, or take a trip and see for yourself!

Another beautiful example of Baroque monastery architecture is the Abbey Library of Saint Gall, located in the abbey district of St. Gallen. The Abbey Library has roots dating back to the Middle Ages, when St Gall himself founded a community on the grounds, though the current building was not constructed until 1767. 

Gall, an Irish missionary and educated hermit, was a fellow book lover with whom many of us can probably relate. After all, who among us wouldn’t want a library in their name, let alone a library housing some of the world’s oldest manuscripts and one that is still dedicated to research some 1,300 years later? Yes, please!

The Abbey Library of St. Gall is the oldest library in Switzerland and is at the center of the St. Gallen World Cultural Heritage complex. 

Stepping away from our beloved baroque monasteries and into neo-Manueline Portuguese architecture, enter The Royal Portuguese Cabinet of Reading in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The Royal Cabinet was founded by Portuguese immigrants looking to bring the majesty of their country’s literary tradition to the newly independent Brazil, and it became the largest collection of Portuguese literature to be found outside of Portugal itself. 

The imposing exterior of the structure gives way to elegant floor-to-ceiling shelves lining three levels of interior walls within the reading room itself. The space resembles a cathedral with ornate wooden galleries, a stained-glass dome, and a cast-iron chandelier illuminating the spines of almost 400,000 volumes.

Now, this may not look like your typical library, and that’s because it’s not. The Byeolmadang Library is a free public library situated in the middle of the Starfield shopping mall in Seoul, South Korea. The library was designed to be accessible to anyone, and with three stories of books in multiple genres, an entire section dedicated to foreign titles, over 600 magazines, and free-to-use iPads with eBooks to read, it’s safe to say they’ve accomplished their goal.

It may appear as a huge open-air bookstore, but the Byeolmadang Library is completely free to use, and offers amenities like quiet study areas, worktables with charging ports, and 70,000 books to browse. 

Imagine a trip to the mall with friends interrupted with a stop to peruse a collection of thousands of books, all while your besties shop only a few yards away. Or, better yet, experience it for yourself!

The Biblioteca Vasconcelos is a public library in Mexico City, Mexico, known for its hanging steel shelves and mirrors that lend the illusion of a never ending space. The library first opened in 2006, and is said to contain a collection of over 600,000 volumes, though it is planned for expansion to accommodate 2 million. 

Within the library are gardens, a greenhouse, and a bookshop that make the building ecologically sensitive and lit almost entirely by filtered natural light so as not to damage the books.

José Vasconcelos, whom the library is named after, was a Mexican writer, philosopher, and educator in the 20th century, and was president of the National Library of Mexico. 

The library is nestled between a cultural market and shopping center in Mexico City, though with its extensive structure, gardens, and bookshop, there is plenty to be found within the Biblioteca Vasconcelos without stepping foot outside its gilded walls.

Located within the El Escorial Monastery in central Spain, the Library of El Escorial is part of the most important architectural monument of the Spanish Renaissance. The Monastery itself was built in 1584 as a final resting place for Holy Roman Emperor Charles V and his wife, Isabel of Portugal, and the building was also meant to serve as a palace for their son, King Philip II.

The Library was built in 1592, and is decorated with the works of many famous Spanish and Italian artists of the 16th century, including frescos by Pellegrino Tibaldi and Federico Zuccaro. It is said that King Philip was incredibly meticulous in his commissions and selections of artwork, architecture, and sculptures within El Escorial, and as a result, it is one of the rare instances in which Renaissance artwork and architecture are composed in such unified detail.

Today, the Library of El Escorial is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and is only a short trip from the city of Madrid, so there’s plenty of time to take in the magnificent artwork of the library and the rest of the monastery before heading back to one of the city's many hotels.

The Library of Congress is the most famous library in the United States. Its collection began in 1800, when, as the national government moved from Philadelphia to Washington, D.C., President John Adams approved an act of Congress providing funds to create a collection of books for Congressional use.

These original volumes were burned along with the Capitol in which they were held during the War of 1812, and it was Thomas Jefferson’s personal collection that served to replace the lost collection. In the late nineteenth century, the Library itself was built as a structure separate from other government buildings, and, when it opened in 1897, it was the largest library in the world. It remains the largest today with millions of books, films, audio and video recordings, photographs, newspapers, maps, and manuscripts.

The Library of Congress is a national library whose resources are available in-person and online, but, if you want to experience the building’s rich history and Italian-Renaissance-inspired architecture yourself, it’s worth the trip!

The Old Library at Trinity College in Dublin, Ireland, is home to the iconic Long Room, the main chamber filled with 200,000 of the Library’s oldest books. The Library was first built between 1712 and 1732, and by 1860 the current barrel-vaulted ceiling and upper gallery shelves were installed.

Most notable, perhaps, is the Library’s possession of the Book of Kells—a famous 9th century gospel manuscript. In addition to the Book of Kells, the Trinity Library is home to marble busts lining the walls of the Long Room, as well as artifacts like the 1916 Proclamation of the Irish Republic and the oldest medieval harp in Ireland. 

Today, the library is an internationally-renowned center for research and its collection, cultivated by the reception of all material published in the United Kingdom and Ireland since 1801, is one of the most respected in the world. 

Experience the Book of Kells and the rest of the Trinity Library in Dublin on your next trip!