America’s Most Beautiful Libraries

A Refuge from the World

Cappelli, MFA, JD, PhD
Digital Global Traveler

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Photo by audrey_sel https://www.flickr.com

I love libraries and spent a great deal of time in them as a child and young scholar; As a child, the library was a refuge from my turbulent home life; as a scholar, the library was my home; it’s where I lived and breathed day and night. A gateway to knowledge, libraries connect people to a world of ideas, events, histories, events, people. For me, a library is a place of discovery, where my curiosity flourishes and runs wild through a labyrinth of ideas sweeping me away to an unexplored destination. For my soul, a library is a place of reverence. I think Jorge Luis Borges, says it best:

I have always imagined that paradise will be a kind of library.

Here are just a few of my favorite libraries.

Hoose Library of Philosophy

By EEJCC — Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.

Located on the University of Southern California campus and a City of Los Angeles Historical Cultural Monument, I spent my undergraduate years inside the walnut bookshelves, cathedral ceilings, and stained glass windows. I am partial to this library and remember looking up at mosaic plaques depicting great philosophers with an inscription…

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