The British Library in London holds the second-largest number of books, more then 18 million of them.

The Russian State Library in Moscow holds 17 millions books.
and has a collection of some 632,000 annual sets of newspapers.

The National Library of France,
one of the oldest surviving national libraries in Europe,
has 13 million books.

In addition, the book Library World Records states:
" The French national library was the first library to provide full-text access to a great deal of it's collection via the Internet.
" For anyone with an access to a computer,
the Internet has provided unprecedented ease of access to mankinds storehouse of knowledge.

As never before,
the quality of information available to the public is exploding.
It is extimated that the total stock of human knowledge is doubling every four and a half years.
In the United States alone,
over 150,000 new book titles are published every year.
Especially relevant today, then, is the observation of the ancient scholar , writer and King -- Solomon..
He wrote:
" To the makeing of many books there is no end,
and much devotion to them is wearsome to the flesh."
{ Ecclesiastes 12:12 }

When used discerningly, though,
libraries continue to be what the United Nations Educational,
Scientific , and cultural Organization calls a..
" local gateway to knowledge. "