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The information on this site does not constitute legal advice and is for educational purposes only. If you have a dispute or legal problem, please consult an attorney licensed to practice law in your state. Additionally, the information and views presented on this blog are solely the responsibility of Justin Bathon personally, or the other contributors, personally, and do not represent the views of the University of Kentucky or the institutional employer of any of the contributing editors.

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Thursday
Jul102008

A Billion Books

AuthorJustin Bathon on DateThursday, July 10, 2008 at 9:42PM

There are a billion books collectively in collegiate academic libraries in the U.S., according to this new report by NCES. A billion ... that is sort of hard to visualize, so I thought I would help out.

If, on average, each book weighs three quarters of a pound (probably more because libraries do mostly hardbacks) then the weight of the books in academic libraries in the U.S. is conservatively 750,000,000 lbs.

To put that in perspective, that is 975 times the weight of a fully loaded C-5 Galaxy, the Air Force's largest aircraft. How many is 975 ... well, there are 975 aircraft below in the image (right click to enlarge). The entire U.S. Airforce Fleet of C-5 Galaxies is 111.

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Reader Comments (2)

And of course the text of all of those books would probably fit onto several terabyte hard drives! Total weight = 5 to 10 pounds? Cost = less than $1,000.
July 14, 2008 | Unregistered CommenterScott McLeod
Good point!
July 14, 2008 | Unregistered CommenterJustin Bathon

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