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If you ask Microsoft's Copilot "What is the significance of an exclamation point behind the word "library," it dutifully recounts the standard English usage for that mark of emphasis. It then notes it also refers to the largest public library in the American state of Idaho.
Boise's "Library!" sign was the idea of Howard Olivier, who owned Flying Pie Pizzeria. It came after the downtown Boise Library installed new signage in 1994 with just the word "LIBRARY" in 5-foot-tall letters on the Capitol Boulevard and River Street sides of the building. Olivier told the library's director of marketing that, while accurate, "it's a better library than that."
The history of libraries is complex, and the internet cannot agree on when and where the first library occurred. Most of us would agree that one book a library does not make. Unless it's the building where the first book, the one and only book to exist at the time, was housed.
As far back as ancient Mesopotamia (five thousand years ago), central collections of tablets and scrolls are now called "libraries." But these were mostly private collections not accessible to anyone but those who crafted the documents themselves.
Both Guiness World Records and the History Channel point to the Library of the Ancient Assyrian King Ashurbanipal, a renowned lover of recorded religious rites, lore, history and genealogy.
His library, located in the then-Assyrian capital of Ninevah (of Jonah and the whale fame), housed over 30,000 tablets organized by subject matter. These included one of the first known transcriptions of the 4000-year-old "Epic of Gilgamesh."
As a sidenote, Ashurbanipal's library was the product of brutality, mostly confiscated by raiding defeated enemy temples and sacred places of learning and instruction. He notoriously removed the ears and noses of those who objected to expanding his library's collections.
But the principle that led to the creation of that first library is what has carried the tradition forward for thousands of years: knowledge is power. And up until recently, all inter-generational knowledge shared one common trait. It had to be recorded on some type of media, tablets, scrolls, bound manuscripts or books. And these physical objects needed a central repository: a library.
What if physical objects are no longer how knowledge is preserved? What if language is digitized and streams from clouds onto handheld devices? My iPhone accesses more writings, documents and works of literature than 10,000 Libraries of Ashurbanipal.
The modern library has had to become more than a storage locker. Modern librarians can access, and show others how to access, needles in haystacks. The contemporary challenge isn't getting ahold of records and documents: it is knowing how to weigh and sift vast stores of information to find what is right, and what is useful.
For many, library is a "third place." As in, "home, work, neighborhood pub," or "home, work, gym." When not tending to household responsibilities, or at work earning a living, where do you go for re-centering and expanded awareness? You can always "Library!"
On Monday, March 10, the Soda Springs Library will host "Mini golf at the Library" as a fundraiser. Thanks to Ireland Bank, from 4:00 pm to 7:00 pm library stacks will convert to a series of mini-golf holes themed to works of literature. The Rocky Mountain Tolkien Society will be hosting its own fairly challenging "Hobbit Hole."
Whether its at events like this, through conversations with city and state leaders, or simply at the library's own donation drop box, support your local library!
King Ashurbanipal lived in the Bronze age, because a bronze sword could get you the wealth of a King's library. We live today in the Information age, where information is often more valuable than bronze, iron, or even gold.
And at a modern library, you can have all the information in the world, and no one loses an ear, or a nose.