If you ’ve ever browsed a library and observe a feline booster wandering through the stacks or snoozing beneath a ledge , you ’ve witness a custom dating back thousands of old age . Across the centuries , catshave been members of library life at institutions around the humanity . They remain a part of many today — despite some heated hunting expedition for their removal .
Why Libraries Have Cats
Domesticated catswere celebrate , esteemed creatures inAncient Egypt , but they also had important jobs . Peopleintroduced cats to librariesto prevent computer mouse and other tool from eating and detrimental cute manuscript . As the well-disposed feline spread throughout the macrocosm , they put their pestilence - hound art to work in various appeal across the continents .
The menace gnawer pose to treasured tomes has kept program library cats gainfully utilize ever since . They ’ve served some fairly high-pitched patronage : In the 18th 100 , Empress Elisabeth of Russiaissued a decreeordering that the gravid , best mousers be brought into the majestic palace ( nowthe Hermitage Museum ) in St. Petersburg to catch rats that had encroach upon the library ; their descendants proceed to work there today .
More Articles About Cats :
In most cases , people tend to adore their local library cats . Some of these feline gaina celebrity - like statusthat stretches beyond the communities they wait on . There ’s evena mapthat present some noted library CAT that have worked across the United States .
One of the most famous of them all wasDewey Readmore Books , who subsist in the public program library of Spencer , Iowa . He was find there in 1988 at 8 week old after being abandon in the library ’s cliff box seat , and stay with the asylum until his passing almost 20 years later . The computerized tomography was a much - loved member of the library — he was even givenhis own caper verbal description .
The Case Against Library Cats
Not everyone is thrilled to find a whirr " employee " slinking around the tons . One of the most frequent dispute require depository library user who suffer fromallergies . The Colon Township Library in Michigan had to remove its Caterpillar Jasper after one menage threatened to take sound action as a resultant ofallergy issues . Fortunately , Jasper was able to be rehomed with the library ’s film director .
One of the most high - visibility controversies in recent age interest a cat name internet browser at a depository library in Texas . internet browser was originally impart in to deal with a mice job — then became so pop with staff and patrons that he stayed on . But in 2016 , the local council passed a movement demand he be removed from the library due toallergyconcerns . In reaction , a petition request he continue received over 12,000 signatures , and the town ’s mayor saidhe get messagesfrom “ everywhere in the United States as well as Germany , Australia , Malaysia , Guam , and England . ” browser app was finally let to remain at the library after all .
The international outcry about the prospect of internet browser ’s removal shows that library cat continue a darling part of communities , chiliad of year after they first patrol the program library of the ancient world . Despite the disceptation they sometimes attract , they proceed to have a valued berth in the modern cosmos , too .
