I’m getting on a bit now but as a student in the mid 80s, in the pre-internet era, I distinctly remember hearing tales about library of a university in Glasgow sinking into the mud.
The suggestion was that the architects who designed the building forgot to take account of the weight of the books.
Since then I have heard this story about dozens of other university libraries and it remains an incredibly potent myth in higher education. Not just in the UK – I’ve heard the same thing from other countries too.
But imagine if you will the idea that an architect (university-trained remember) would “forget” to address the single most fundamental requirement of any library – that it be able to hold the weight of the items it is there to store. It’s not going to happen.
