Alabama Public Library Service

Hot summer reading tip: if you're having trouble finding your next book, just ask a librarian.

Not a search engine. Not an algorithm. Not an app that recommends what everyone else is reading.

A librarian will ask you what you loved about the last book you read — the pace of it, the characters, the setting, the feeling it left you with — and then find you something you might never have discovered on your own.

That kind of recommendation is genuinely hard to replicate. It's also completely free.

What's the best book recommendation you've ever received?

𝑃ℎ𝑜𝑡𝑜 𝐶𝑎𝑝𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛: This is the goal. A great book, a summer afternoon, and nowhere else to be. Your local Alabama public library can help with the book — free of charge, and better than any algorithm.

Here's something worth knowing this Fourth of July season: the Declaration of Independence wasn't just a political document. It was a philosophical one — and it was written by men who were voracious readers.

Thomas Jefferson had assembled the largest personal book collection in the United States by 1814. That same year, British forces burned the U.S. Capitol during the War of 1812 — and used the books from the 3,000-volume congressional library as kindling to set the fire. Jefferson, furious, immediately wrote to a friend in Washington offering to sell his entire personal collection to Congress as a replacement.

Congress purchased Jefferson's library — 6,487 volumes — for $23,950, signing the bill into law on Jan. 30, 1815. Jefferson had insisted that Congress must purchase the collection in its entirety or not at all. His reasoning: "There is in fact no subject to which a member of Congress may not have occasion to refer."

After the sale, Jefferson sat in his now-empty library and wrote one of the more poignant sentences in American history: "I cannot live without books." Then he started collecting again.

His collection became the DNA of what is today the Library of Congress — the largest library in the world.

As the nation approaches its 250th birthday, it's worth remembering that the founders didn't just believe in freedom. They believed that freedom required an informed citizenry — and they built institutions to make that possible.

Libraries are one of those institutions. They still are.

𝑃ℎ𝑜𝑡𝑜 𝐶𝑎𝑝𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛: "The Taking of the City of Washington in America," a British engraving published in London on Oct. 14, 1814 — just weeks after British forces burned the U.S. Capitol and, with it, the 3,000-volume congressional library. Thomas Jefferson's response was to sell Congress his personal collection of 6,487 books, laying the foundation for what is today the Library of Congress. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.

𝗔𝗹𝗮𝗯𝗮𝗺𝗮 𝗶𝘀 𝗵𝗼𝗺𝗲 𝘁𝗼 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗼𝗹𝗱𝗲𝘀𝘁 𝗰𝗶𝘁𝘆 𝗶𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗨𝗻𝗶𝘁𝗲𝗱 𝗦𝘁𝗮𝘁𝗲𝘀 𝗰𝗼𝗻𝘁𝗶𝗻𝘂𝗼𝘂𝘀𝗹𝘆 𝗶𝗻𝗵𝗮𝗯𝗶𝘁𝗲𝗱 𝗯𝘆 𝗘𝘂𝗿𝗼𝗽𝗲𝗮𝗻 𝘀𝗲𝘁𝘁𝗹𝗲𝗿𝘀 𝘄𝗲𝘀𝘁 𝗼𝗳 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗔𝗽𝗽𝗮𝗹𝗮𝗰𝗵𝗶𝗮𝗻 𝗠𝗼𝘂𝗻𝘁𝗮𝗶𝗻𝘀.

Alabama is home to the oldest city in the United States continuously inhabited by European settlers west of the Appalachian Mountains — and it has quite a story to tell.
Mobile was established in 1702 by French colonists under Pierre Le Moyne d'Iberville as Fort Louis de la Mobile, initially serving as the capital of the French colony of Louisiana. It has flown the flags of France, Britain, Spain, the Republic of Alabama, the Confederacy and the United States — six flags in total, each representing a different chapter in a city that has been continuously occupied for more than 320 years.

The city's defining cultural contribution is its role as the birthplace of Mardi Gras in the United States, where French settlers organized the first recorded celebration in 1703. New Orleans, whose Mardi Gras celebration today is far more widely known, wasn't even founded until 1718 — 15 years after Mobile's first celebration. The traditions of masked balls, parades and floats that people associate with New Orleans? They were first featured in Mobile. Mobile residents will happily remind you of that, too.

Have you been to Mobile? What's your favorite thing about it?

𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗱 "𝘀𝗲𝗿𝗲𝗻𝗱𝗶𝗽𝗶𝘁𝘆" 𝘄𝗮𝘀 𝗶𝗻𝘃𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗱 𝗯𝘆 𝗮 𝗺𝗮𝗻 𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗱𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗮 𝗳𝗮𝗶𝗿𝘆 𝘁𝗮𝗹𝗲.

On January 28, 1754, the English writer Horace Walpole — son of Robert Walpole, Britain's first prime minister — wrote a letter to his friend Horace Mann, a British diplomat stationed in Florence. Walpole had just made an unexpected discovery about a painting of Bianca Cappello that Mann had sent him as a gift — specifically, a connection between the Cappello family's coat of arms and the Medici family emblem. It was, by Walpole's own admission, a fairly unremarkable find. But the word he coined to describe it was anything but.

"This discovery, indeed, is almost of that kind which I call Serendipity," Walpole wrote, "a very expressive word, which, as I have nothing better to tell you, I shall endeavor to explain to you: you will understand it better by the derivation than the definition."

He based the word on an old Persian fairy tale called "The Three Princes of Serendip" — one of the earliest detective stories in existence, in which three princes track down a missing camel through a combination of luck and remarkably sharp deduction. "Serendip" was an old Persian name for Sri Lanka, derived from the Arabic "Sarandib," which in turn came from the Sanskrit "Sinhaladvipa" — meaning "the island where lions dwell."

Walpole defined his new word as the faculty of making happy and unexpected discoveries by accident — and then, by most accounts, rarely used it again himself. He couldn't have known it would still be in daily use more than 270 years later. He also couldn't have known that ten years after writing that letter, he'd publish "The Castle of Otranto" — widely considered the first Gothic novel, and one of the most influential works of fiction in English literary history. Apparently, accidental discoveries ran in the family of his writing career.

Today, "serendipity" is one of the most frequently cited "untranslatable" words in the English language — not because other languages lack the concept, but because few have found quite so elegant a single word for it. In a well-known 2004 survey of professional translators, it was voted the single hardest English word to translate into any other language.

Libraries are among the best places in the world to experience serendipity in the original sense — the happy, accidental discovery made while looking for something else entirely. You go in for one book and come out with three you'd never heard of, one of which turns out to be exactly what you needed without knowing you needed it.

That's not an accident of library design. It is, to a significant degree, the point.

What's the best book you've ever discovered completely by accident?

𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝘀𝗺𝗲𝗹𝗹 𝗼𝗳 𝗼𝗹𝗱 𝗯𝗼𝗼𝗸𝘀 𝗵𝗮𝘀 𝗮 𝗻𝗮𝗺𝗲, 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝘀𝗰𝗶𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗶𝘀𝘁𝘀 𝗵𝗮𝘃𝗲 𝘀𝘁𝘂𝗱𝗶𝗲𝗱 𝗶𝘁 𝘀𝗲𝗿𝗶𝗼𝘂𝘀𝗹𝘆.

The term most often used is 𝒃𝒊𝒃𝒍𝒊𝒐𝒔𝒎𝒊𝒂 — from the Greek biblion (book) and osmia (smell). It isn't one smell but many, depending on the age of the paper, the type of ink used, the binding materials, the humidity of the environment where the book was stored, and the slow chemical processes breaking down the organic compounds in the paper over decades or centuries.

In 2009, researchers at University College London led by Matija Strlič published a landmark study in Analytical Chemistry titled "Material Degradomics: On the Smell of Old Books," using gas chromatography-mass spectrometry to identify the key volatile organic compounds emitted by degrading paper. What they found was a surprisingly rich aromatic profile. The most recognizable contributor is vanillin, a breakdown product of lignin that imparts a sweet, vanilla-like fragrance — chemically identical to the primary compound in vanilla extract. Another common product is benzaldehyde, which adds an almond-like note. Furfural, released as cellulose breaks down, contributes a nutty or sweet smell. Acetic acid and formic acid contribute faint tangy, slightly vinegary notes, while guaiacol — arising from lignin oxidation — can add smoky or spicy undertones.

When the UCL team surveyed visitors to historic libraries and asked them to describe the smell in a single word, the most common response was "chocolatey" — which makes sense given the combination of vanillin, phenolic compounds, and warm caramel notes from furfural.

Here's something that will surprise most people: modern books are manufactured differently, and the chemistry that produces that beloved old-book smell has been largely engineered out of the process. Starting in the 1980s, publishers moved to alkaline-buffered, acid-free paper. Older papers were acidic, which meant they actually catalyzed their own degradation — the acid hydrolyzed cellulose chains, accelerating the release of volatile compounds. Acid-free paper degrades far more slowly, producing fewer aromatics over time. In other words, the books being printed today will likely never smell the way old books smell. That scent is a byproduct of a papermaking era that no longer exists.

Old books are, in the most literal sense, slowly returning to the earth. What we're smelling when we open an aged volume is time itself — the patient, invisible chemistry of decay that eventually reclaims everything made of organic material.

Readers who love the smell of old books aren't being sentimental. They're responding to a genuinely complex and layered sensory experience. Perfumers have tried to replicate it. There is at least one commercially available fragrance designed to smell like an old library. It is reportedly quite good — but not quite the same.

Are you a person who notices the smell of books? What does it bring to mind for you?

𝐌𝐞𝐞𝐭 𝐌𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐲 — 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐘𝐞𝐬, 𝐘𝐨𝐮 𝐂𝐚𝐧 𝐓𝐚𝐤𝐞 𝐇𝐢𝐦 𝐇𝐨𝐦𝐞.

We're thrilled to introduce the newest addition to the Alabama Regional Library for the Blind and Physically Disabled's "Library of Things" — and he's got quite a story to tell.

Monty is a stunningly detailed, full-scale sculpture of the skull of Appalachiosaurus montgomeriensis — a dinosaur whose remains were discovered right here in Montgomery County back in 1982. Built from foam, foil, wire, papier-mâché, and paint, Monty is lightweight, portable, and ready to make an impression wherever he goes.

This incredible piece was hand-built by our own Amanda Trawick, Senior Librarian at the Alabama Regional Library for the Blind, who researched the project so thoroughly she reached out directly to Jun Ebersole, Director of Collections at the McWane Science Center, to get the exact dimensions of the original skull — just over three feet long. Only about 15% of the original skull was actually unearthed in 1982, with the rest reconstructed using fiberglass for the full skeleton display at McWane. Monty was built true to that scale.

Monty comes complete with an audiobook cartridge featuring information about the Alabama dinosaur he's modeled after, making him as educational as he is impressive — a perfect tie-in for this year's Summer Reading theme, "Unearth a Story."

Best part? Monty is available for checkout to any individual or institution using the Alabama Regional Library for the Blind and Physically Disabled services. Whether for a classroom, a library program, or just pure curiosity, Monty is ready to travel.

For more information about Monty, contact the Alabama Regional Library for the Blind and Physically Disabled at 334-213-3961 or 800-392-5671.

A huge thank-you to Amanda for bringing this piece of Alabama's prehistoric history to life — quite literally — for our patrons to enjoy.

𝑃ℎ𝑜𝑡𝑜 𝐶𝑎𝑝𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛: Monty, a scale sculpture of the Appalachiosaurus montgomeriensis skull, hand-built by Senior Librarian Amanda Trawick of the Alabama Regional Library for the Blind and Physically Disabled. Built true to scale from the original fossil discovered in Montgomery County in 1982, Monty is available for checkout through the Library for the Blind's "Library of Things."

Summer reading programs at your local public library aren't just a fun way to pass the time — they're one of the most effective tools available for keeping kids on track academically. And the research behind them is more compelling than most parents realize.

Here's what the data actually shows: students in grades 3 through 5 lose, on average, about 20 percent of their school-year gains in reading over summer break — and 27 percent of their math gains. That's not a small dip. That's a significant chunk of a school year's worth of progress evaporating before the next school year arrives. Researchers call it the "summer slide," and it is well-documented and more persistent among students from lower-income backgrounds who are already at risk for academic difficulty.

The good news? A meta-analysis of 41 studies on summer reading interventions found that structured summer reading — whether at home or through a program — can substantially improve reading comprehension, with the greatest benefits seen among children from low-income backgrounds. Simply put, kids who read over the summer arrive in the fall ahead of where they would have been otherwise.

And your public library makes it easy. Summer reading programs are free, open to all ages — yes, adults too — and designed to make reading feel like an adventure rather than an assignment. This year, Alabama's public libraries are built around the theme "Unearth a Story," with special events, activities, prizes, and programs running all summer long at libraries across the state.

The single most powerful thing a family can do this summer to support a child's education costs nothing. You can find your nearest Alabama public library at www.statelibrary.alabama.gov and get involved with summer reading today.

What was your favorite book as a child — the one you'd read over and over again every summer?

𝑃ℎ𝑜𝑡𝑜 𝐶𝑎𝑝𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛: Summer Reading 2026 is here — and this year, the stories are coming to life. "Unearth a Story" is underway at public libraries across Alabama. Sign up at your local library today. It's free, it's fun, and the research shows it makes a real difference.

𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗠𝘂𝘀𝗰𝗹𝗲 𝗦𝗵𝗼𝗮𝗹𝘀 𝗮𝗿𝗲𝗮 𝗼𝗳 𝗻𝗼𝗿𝘁𝗵𝘄𝗲𝘀𝘁 𝗔𝗹𝗮𝗯𝗮𝗺𝗮 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗱𝘂𝗰𝗲𝗱 𝘀𝗼𝗺𝗲 𝗼𝗳 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗺𝗼𝘀𝘁 𝗶𝗻𝗳𝗹𝘂𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗶𝗮𝗹 𝗿𝗲𝗰𝗼𝗿𝗱𝗲𝗱 𝗺𝘂𝘀𝗶𝗰 𝗶𝗻 𝗔𝗺𝗲𝗿𝗶𝗰𝗮𝗻 𝗵𝗶𝘀𝘁𝗼𝗿𝘆 — 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗱𝗲𝗰𝗮𝗱𝗲𝘀, 𝗮𝗹𝗺𝗼𝘀𝘁 𝗻𝗼𝗯𝗼𝗱𝘆 𝗼𝘂𝘁𝘀𝗶𝗱𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗶𝗻𝗱𝘂𝘀𝘁𝗿𝘆 𝗸𝗻𝗲𝘄 𝗶𝘁.

It began with FAME Studios, founded in the late 1950s by Rick Hall and eventually settled at 603 East Avalon Ave. in Muscle Shoals. FAME has welcomed a literal who's who of music royalty, from Etta James, Wilson Pickett, and Aretha Franklin to Alicia Keys, Demi Lovato, and Jason Isbell. It's the room where Aretha Franklin found her sound. It's the room where Wilson Pickett recorded "Mustang Sally." It's where FAME produced chart-topping, generation-defining music year after year.

The first number-one single to come out of the Shoals, Percy Sledge's 1966 classic "When a Man Loves a Woman," was recorded not at FAME but at Quinvy Recording Studio in the neighboring town of Sheffield. But it was Hall who secured its release, and its success put the entire region on the map.

The Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section — also known as the Swampers, consisting of David Hood on bass, Jimmy Johnson on rhythm guitar, Roger Hawkins on drums, and Barry Beckett on keys — began working together at FAME before leaving in 1969 to open their own studio at 3614 Jackson Highway in Sheffield. The new studio found success early thanks to the Rolling Stones, who cut "Wild Horses" and "Brown Sugar" there and opened the floodgates for artists like Paul Simon, Rod Stewart, and Bob Seger.

The Swampers played on hit records by soul stars such as Percy Sledge, Wilson Pickett, and Aretha Franklin, as well as country-rock songs by Glenn Frey, Levon Helm, Eddie Rabbitt, and Willie Nelson, and top-selling albums by Bob Seger, Paul Simon, and the Staple Singers. Lynyrd Skynyrd later gave the Swampers a permanent place in rock history by name-dropping them in "Sweet Home Alabama" in 1974.

What made the Muscle Shoals sound? Nobody has ever fully explained it. The musicians themselves tend to shrug when asked. Something about the place, they say. Something about the way the sessions ran. Something that can't be engineered or replicated on purpose.

FAME Studios is still operating. Muscle Shoals Sound Studio in Sheffield is now a museum. And the sound those sessions produced is woven so deeply into American music that you've almost certainly heard it without knowing where it came from.

What's your favorite piece of Alabama history that you think deserves more national attention?

𝑃ℎ𝑜𝑡𝑜 𝐶𝑎𝑝𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛: FAME Recording Studios at 603 East Avalon Ave. in Muscle Shoals, Alabama — where Aretha Franklin found her sound, Wilson Pickett recorded "Mustang Sally," and one of the most storied chapters in American music history was written. The studio's own tagline says it best: "Where It All Started."

𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗮𝗺𝗽𝗲𝗿𝘀𝗮𝗻𝗱 — 𝘁𝗵𝗲 & 𝘀𝘆𝗺𝗯𝗼𝗹 — 𝗶𝘀 𝗮 𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗽𝗿𝗲𝘀𝘀𝗲𝗱 𝘃𝗲𝗿𝘀𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗼𝗳 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗟𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗻 𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗱 𝗲𝘁, 𝘄𝗵𝗶𝗰𝗵 𝘀𝗶𝗺𝗽𝗹𝘆 𝗺𝗲𝗮𝗻𝘀 "𝗮𝗻𝗱."

If you look at a handwritten ampersand carefully, particularly in older or more stylized fonts, you can still see the letters e and t folded into each other. It is one of the oldest ligatures in the Western writing tradition, dating back to the first century A.D., when Roman scribes began joining the two letters in the interest of writing faster.
For centuries, the ampersand was considered the 27th letter of the English alphabet. Children reciting the alphabet would end with "...X, Y, Z, and per se and" — meaning "and by itself, and." The phrase was said so often and so quickly that it eventually collapsed into a single word: ampersand. The symbol ate its own name.
It has never entirely left common use. You see it in business names, in headlines, in design work, in shorthand. It persists the way useful things tend to persist — not because anyone decided to keep it, but because people kept reaching for it.
Typography is full of these survivals. Marks and symbols that began as practical shortcuts, became conventional, became invisible, and are now so embedded in written language that we use them without thinking about where they came from or how long they have been with us.
What punctuation mark or symbol do you find yourself using most — and do you know where it came from?

𝑃ℎ𝑜𝑡𝑜 𝐶𝑎𝑝𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛: An ampersand rendered in elegant calligraphic script. Look closely and you can still see the Latin letters "e" and "t" — the word "et," meaning "and" — folded into each other. Roman scribes first joined those two letters in the first century A.D. simply to write faster. Nearly 2,000 years later, the symbol is still everywhere.

𝗔𝗹𝗮𝗯𝗮𝗺𝗮'𝘀 𝗿𝗼𝗹𝗲 𝗶𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗨𝗻𝗶𝘁𝗲𝗱 𝗦𝘁𝗮𝘁𝗲𝘀 𝘀𝗽𝗮𝗰𝗲 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗴𝗿𝗮𝗺 𝗶𝘀 𝗹𝗮𝗿𝗴𝗲𝗿 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝗻 𝗺𝗼𝘀𝘁 𝗔𝗺𝗲𝗿𝗶𝗰𝗮𝗻𝘀 𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗹𝗶𝘇𝗲 — 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗶𝘁 𝗯𝗲𝗴𝗮𝗻 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝗮 𝗱𝗲𝗰𝗶𝘀𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗺𝗮𝗱𝗲 𝗶𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗲𝗮𝗿𝗹𝘆 𝟭𝟵𝟱𝟬𝘀 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗰𝗼𝘂𝗹𝗱 𝗲𝗮𝘀𝗶𝗹𝘆 𝗵𝗮𝘃𝗲 𝗴𝗼𝗻𝗲 𝗮𝗻𝗼𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗿 𝘄𝗮𝘆.

After World War II, a group of German rocket scientists — including Wernher von Braun, the engineer behind Germany's V-2 rocket — were brought to the United States under a classified program called Operation Paperclip. They were stationed first at Fort Bliss, Texas, where they worked with the U.S. Army and conducted rocket tests at White Sands Proving Ground in New Mexico. In 1950, von Braun's team moved to Redstone Arsenal near Huntsville, Alabama, where they designed the Army's Redstone and Jupiter ballistic missiles, as well as the Jupiter-C, Juno II, and Saturn I launch vehicles.
What followed transformed Huntsville entirely. On July 1, 1960, von Braun's Army team was transferred to NASA as the core of the new Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, with von Braun serving as its first director. Under his leadership, the center built the Saturn I, the Saturn IB, and finally the massive Saturn V — the rocket that in 1969 carried Apollo 11 to the Moon. The Saturn V remains the most powerful launch vehicle ever successfully flown.
Only three Saturn V rockets still exist in the world. The one at the U.S. Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville is the only Saturn V to have been designated a National Historic Landmark. It is displayed horizontally inside the Davidson Center for Space Exploration — and standing beneath it, you begin to understand what it actually took to leave this planet. The center is a Smithsonian affiliate, the official visitor center for NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center, and home to one of the largest collections of rockets and space memorabilia on display anywhere in the world.
The moon landings were many things to many people. To Huntsville, they were a local production.

Have you visited the U.S. Space and Rocket Center? What's your connection to Alabama's space history?

𝑃ℎ𝑜𝑡𝑜 𝐶𝑎𝑝𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛: The Saturn V rocket on display in the Davidson Center for Space Exploration at the U.S. Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville, Alabama. One of only three Saturn V rockets in existence, this one is the only Saturn V to have been designated a National Historic Landmark. At 363 feet long and capable of generating 7.6 million pounds of thrust, it remains the most powerful launch vehicle ever successfully flown.