The largest collection of Shakespeare’s First Folios is not found in his home country of England, but rather in the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C. The First Folio is the first published collection of his plays, released seven years after his death. There are 25 First Folios that are known to exist, and 82 of them can be found at the Folger Shakespeare Library.

St. Mark is the patron saint of the city of Venice, and the Biblioteca Marciana, or Library of St. Mark, is one of the oldest surviving public libraries in Venice. The “Old Library,” as it is nicknamed, was founded in 1468, and the original library building is found in St. Mark’s Square. The library is known for its collection of works from Greece — it was originally sponsored by Greek scholar Cardinal Bessarion, who donated about 1,000 codes and manuscripts.

In 1995, Dolly Parton launched her Imagination Library, which has since distributed 200 million books to children in the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Australia, and Ireland. Parton drew inspiration from her father, who was never able to read. “The seeds of these dreams are often found in books,” Parton said, “and the seeds you help plant in your community can grow across the world.”

Located in Baltimore, the George Peabody Library earned its “cathedral of books” nickname mainly from its design, which features a large cavernous space inside. The library is part of Johns Hopkins University, with a collection dating back to 1857, when the Peabody Institute was founded. The library holds approximately 300,000 items, focusing on books from the 1800s.

The Bibliotheca Alexandrina in Egypt was built to replicate the scholarship from the original Library of Alexandria, which was destroyed during the war between Caesar and Cleopatra in 48 BCE. In addition to six libraries and four museums, it has a copy of the Internet Archive — a complete snapshot of all web pages on every website since 1996.

The Bibliothèque Nationale de France has roots in the King’s Library, built during the reign of Charles V in the 14th century. The library was reconstructed in various places before moving to Paris in the late 1500s. Its massive collection of 12 million printed books has led to many expansions, the most significant of which was completed along the Seine in 1995 — featuring four glass skyscrapers that surround an open square.

In St. Gallen, Switzerland, visitors to the Abbey Library of St. Gall can browse materials dating back 12 centuries. One of those items is the first-ever architectural plan drawn on parchment. Perhaps even more impressive than the library’s collection is its architecture. The space is a detailed Baroque rococo design, complete with swirling molding and artwork on the ceiling.

Steel magnate Andrew Carnegie’s fortune was equal to somewhere between $300 and $372 billion in today’s dollars, and he donated a large amount to philanthropy. Carnegie was a lover of libraries — as he put it, libraries “give nothing for nothing. Youths must acquire knowledge themselves.” About 2,500 libraries across the world were built with Carnegie’s funding, of which 1,600 are located in the U.S.

Built in 1857, the British Museum’s Reading Room in London features a distinctive papier mâché ceiling. The library’s bookshelves were made from iron so they’d be fireproof and hold the weight of the heavy books. The majority of the collection was moved out of the library in 1997 during a restoration; it reopened in 2000 with approximately 25,000 titles.

The Abbey Library was built in 1776 in Admont, Austria, and it remains the world’s largest monastery library. In the words of Josef Hueber, the Austrian baroque architect who designed the hall, its rooms were designed to be “like the mind” and “should also be filled with light.” In addition to manuscripts and 200,000 volumes of books, the library features a number of prominent sculptures.

With a collection of about 650,000 items, the Library of Parliament is Canada’s official parliamentary library. As such, it’s located in the center of governmental activity in the country: Canada’s capital city of Ottawa. Use of the library is typically restricted to parliamentarians and their staff, but it is also open for tours and educational visits.

Only one person is allowed to remove books from the Vatican Library: the pope. The library in Vatican City is open only to visitors who can prove they are conducting research. If you’re one of those people, though, you’ll be able to browse — without checking out — more than 2,000 years’ worth of manuscripts, covering everything from ancient math to love letters.

The famous Book of Kells — a ninth-century illuminated manuscript written in longhand and containing four gospels from the Bible — is on display at the Trinity College Old Library in Dublin, Ireland. Visitors pass through an exhibit about its history before reaching the library’s treasury, where the book is displayed.

The collection at Yale’s Beinecke Library is described in the library’s full name: the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library. The New Haven, Connecticut, library is one of the largest in the world specifically devoted to rare books. More than 200,000 people come to the library annually for free exhibits, such as a permanent display of the Gutenberg Bible.

The biggest box office hit of 1984, “Ghostbusters” featured an opening scene set in the aisles of the famed New York Public Library. Shelves and card catalogs are pulled open by an invisible force behind a librarian, and as she runs in fear, she finally runs into a bright light — and then the opening credits and famous theme song start rolling. Several other movies have also featured the New York Public Library, including “Breakfast at Tiffany’s.”

Stretching across 27 libraries with a collection of more than 13 million items, the Bodleian Libraries belong to England’s Oxford University. It is the second-largest library system in the United Kingdom after the British Library in London. The library’s network includes one of the oldest libraries in Europe, the Bodleian Old Library, and Oxford’s famous Radcliffe Camera library.

The Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum was the first of its kind, and it was also the only presidential library used by a sitting President. The library opened in Hyde Park, New York, in 1941, eight years into FDR’s record 12-year term. His personal library included some 22,000 books and pamphlets.

Located in the United States' capital, the Library of Congress has the largest collection of any library in the world, according to the Guinness Book of World Records. It features a whopping 838 miles of shelves holding 173,731,463 items — including a rough draft of the Declaration of Independence. Every day, about 10,000 more items are added to the collection.

Located at the foot of Mount Sinai in Egypt, St. Catherine’s Monastery contains a library that is the world’s oldest still in operation. Byzantine Emperor Justinian I ordered the construction of the library, which was finished between 527 and 565 CE. The library contains a series of works called the “Old Collection,” which include 3,300 documents that are thought to be some of the most important early Christian manuscripts yet discovered.

In 1848, the Boston Public Library became the first municipally supported free public library in the United States. The Boston Public Library’s collection of 23 million works makes it one of the three largest in the United States, and it also contains the personal libraries of President John Adams.