National Library Week is celebrated during the second week of April. It was first observed in 1958 by the American Library Association and the National Book Committee to promote reading and literacy. The event’s themes change each year and have included “Libraries Lead” and “Libraries Transform.” National Library Week is an opportunity to recognize the valuable contributions of libraries and the resources and services they provide.
This Library Collection banknote set comes with banknotes from various countries around the world portraying learning, literature, and education themes. Featured are Serbian alphabet creator Vuk Stefanovic Karadzic, Kiev Yaroslav I the Wise, Kiev Yaroslav I the Wise, the Teachers Training College building, a set of books, poet Carlos Drummond de Andrade, school children studying, and Apolinario Mabini’s El Verdadero Decologo.
World’s First Library
The first library in the world is believed to have been established in ancient Sumer (modern-day Iraq) around 2600 BCE. Known as the “Library of Ashurbanipal” it was a collection of clay tablets with inscriptions in cuneiform script, containing information on a wide range of subjects. The library was named after King Ashurbanipal, the last of the great kings of the Assyrian Empire who reigned from 668 to 627 BCE and is credited with assembling the collection. Among the library’s greatest treasures was the famous Epic of Gilgamesh. The Sumerian and Akkadian epic poem chronicles Gilgamesh’s quest to find immortality.
On the reverse of the Iraq 25 Dinars banknote from 2001 is the Ishtar Gate of Babylon. Constructed through the order of Neo-Babylonian ruler King Nebuchadnezzar II, the gate is dedicated to Ishtar, Babylon’s goddess of sexual desire and war. Ishtar proposed marriage to Gilgamesh which he refused because he knows that Ishtar’s lovers will die or suffer. The banknote also features President Saddam Hussein on the obverse.
Most Popular Library of the Ancient World
The Library of Alexandria in Egypt, founded in the third century BCE, is perhaps the most famous library of the ancient world. It was a vast repository of knowledge, containing over 700,000 papyrus scrolls and later, paper manuscripts, on a wide range of subjects including philosophy, science, and literature. The library was destroyed in a fire in the first century BCE when Julius Caesar sieged Alexandria.
The 10 Egyptian pound banknote from 2022 features the Library of Alexandria on its reverse, along with a portrait of Queen Hatshepsut, the fifth Pharaoh of the Eighteenth Dynasty of Egypt and a pyramid. The banknote’s obverse features the Al-Fatah al-Aleem Mosque in Cairo.
