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.