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Libraries stand as vital pillars of knowledge, technology, and social services. However, some libraries boast collections that go beyond the usual mysteries and love stories, featuring rarer and more peculiar relics. Some of these libraries also have chilling histories that might just send a shiver down your spine. Here are ten libraries where you definitely wouldn’t want to stay overnight.
10. The Nassau Public Library
The Nassau Public Library, the Bahamas' oldest and largest, is home to rare Arawak (indigenous peoples of South America and the Caribbean) artifacts along with a collection of historical prints, colonial records, and old newspapers. There’s even a reading room and museum located on-site. But the building wasn’t originally meant to house books. Constructed in 1797 by Joseph Eveas, the distinctive octagonal structure was intended as a correctional workhouse (a jail). Today, visitors browse books from what were once cramped cells that housed prisoners more than two centuries ago. The basement is ominously known as 'the dungeon.'
9. Weapon of Mass Instruction
Imagine strolling down the street, casually going about your day, when suddenly, an armored tank with a gun turret appears to glide toward you. This is exactly the scenario artist Raul Lemesoff creates in Argentina, except his 'tank' is actually a mobile library called 'A Weapon of Mass Instruction.' Its mission is to distribute books, not bullets. The 'tank' is a converted 1970 Ford Falcon capable of holding up to 900 books. While this whimsical and community-driven project (Lemesoff believes it can generate positive social impact by 'transporting books, giving books away, collecting books, and making a mess of people’s heads') may seem charming, it’s likely to cause a few heart-racing moments when its shadow casts around the corner.
8. Conjuring Arts Research Center
The 'Conjuring Arts Research Center' may sound like the name of a fictional wizard school, but it’s an actual library located in the heart of Manhattan. This dimly-lit, compact space holds hundreds of books on stage magic, some dating back before 1700. The collection also includes original stage apparatus, enormous mechanical devices once used to amaze and deceive audiences worldwide. While the center operates by appointment only, visitors can also explore books at a couple of local magic shops they've partnered with.
7. University of Southern Denmark
The University of Southern Denmark might seem like a typical academic institution, but there’s something truly unique about its library. Three rare books from the 16th and 17th centuries were found to have high levels of arsenic on their covers after an X-ray examination, a technique usually used to study the chemical composition of artwork like paintings and pottery. The poison was likely used as a pesticide to protect these manuscripts from insects. The arsenic-laden books are now stored in special boxes, as the toxin can cause serious health issues, including nausea, cancer, and even death. Handling these books is highly discouraged due to the ongoing danger.
6. New York Puppet Library
This library might be fun to visit during daylight, but as the evening falls, casting eerie shadows across its peculiar collection, you’d likely want to leave. The New York Puppet Library, located at Brooklyn College, houses nearly 100 strange and sometimes massive puppets. Despite their presence, many staff, students, and even neighboring libraries are unaware of the Puppet Library’s existence. Adding to the unsettling nature of the space, the puppets are stored 20 feet up in the air. To borrow one, visitors must climb a ladder, with the painted eyes of the puppets watching them the whole time.
5. Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library
Monsters come to life in the books at the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library. From dragons to manticores, this library specializes in manuscripts about mythical beasts. What makes it even more unsettling are the vivid illustrations of strange cryptids, such as tribes of humans with dog heads, found in the library’s 1559 edition of Cosmographia. Alongside semi-naturalist works, the library houses famous fictional monsters, including an 1882 copy of Frankenstein, with an ominously thin and tall depiction of the man-monster long before Hollywood’s version. The library has so many monstrous texts that they even curated an exhibition in 2018, 'De Monstris,' to showcase their bizarre collection.
4. Alaska Resources Library and Information Services
Imagine a library where hundreds of glass eyes, belonging to animals, stare down at you from the shelves. This is exactly what you’ll encounter at the Alaska Resources Library and Information Services. This library specializes in “realia,” including animal skeletons, skulls, teeth, furs, and other taxidermy specimens (although not human, they’re certainly no less strange in a library!). ARLIS is the only library in the United States known to house such bizarre collections, primarily serving teachers and scientists who incorporate the specimens into their lessons. On occasion, however, these creatures are loaned out for more unconventional purposes. For instance, the 2013 film The Frozen Ground borrowed some for use in setting a serial killer’s basement.
3. Patee Library—Penn State
It sounds like something from a sensationalized story: a beautiful young woman, murdered in cold blood just after Thanksgiving, with the killer never caught. Tragically, this was a real event. On November 28th, 1969, 22-year-old Betsy Ruth Aardsma was brutally stabbed to death in the basement of Patee Library. She was attacked from behind, and there was no evidence of sexual assault. Despite many suspicions—from Aardsma’s boyfriend to serial killer Ted Bundy—the motive is still unknown, and the killer remains unidentified. Whether you believe in spirits or not, you might want to reconsider being alone in those basement stacks, just in case Betsy’s killer returns to the scene of the crime.
2. Historical Medical Library
The Historical Medical Library, located in the College of Physicians of Philadelphia, served as the city’s primary medical library from its founding in 1788 until well into the 20th century. With over 400 editions printed before 1501, it holds one of the most significant collections of historical medical knowledge in the United States. The library’s shelves are filled with books and illustrations showcasing some of the most gruesome medical procedures ever conceived, such as bloodletting and trepanning (drilling holes into the skull). Vital knowledge, to be sure, but certainly not for the faint-hearted.
1. Newberry Library
It might sound like the plot of a chilling horror film, but it’s actually real—along with its vast collection of religious texts, Chicago’s Newberry Library also houses a 17th-century spellbook, handwritten by two anonymous witches. “The Book of Magical Charms” includes spells for everything from cheating at dice to raising the dead, some requiring peculiar ingredients like dead men’s teeth. The library also possesses two other eerie works: “The Commonplace Book” and “Cases of Conscience Concerning Witchcraft,” the latter written by Increase Mather, the man responsible for passing judgment during the Salem Witch Trials. In 2017, the library even invited the public to help translate these arcane texts by publishing them online, making it a great opportunity for experts in Latin, witchcraft, or medieval English to investigate further.
+ English Crime and Execution Broadsides Collection
Though not a library in itself, this unsettling collection belongs to the Harvard Law School Library. The English Crime and Execution Broadsides consist of nearly 600 broadsides (large single-sided printed sheets, once used as posters or public announcements). These broadsides focus specifically on the grisly details and punishments for capital offenses committed in England and Wales between 1735 and 1868. They cover crimes like arson, rape, assault, and murder, and include descriptions of the crimes as well as their punishments—often involving hanging. The broadsides also feature the last words, confessions, and dying speeches of the condemned, with illustrations depicting execution scenes or bloodstained crime scenes.
