In This Beautiful Library, Bats Guard the Books

atlasobscura.com

88 points·Brajeshwar··14 comments

What an interesting example of symbiosis! I wish there were more ways that humans could work together with the animals in our environment in ways like these -- it's a win win for both species! Now if only they could be trained to go the washroom...

It does not clearly say where the Library is. Looks like it is in Portugal.

Also I think I have seen it used in some movies. Is that correct ?

Yes, Biblioteca Joanina in Portugal. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biblioteca_Joanina

Yeah I wish they'd included it when they named that library! But they do mention it at the very end: "Joanine Library at the University of Coimbra in Coimbra, Portugal"

Why did they have to buy the sheets from Russia? I'd naively expect they could source it locally. What am I missing?

Perhaps the Russian supplier was more competitive or the product of better quality or just more precisely what was needed. Just the same as plenty of people in Europe now buy Japanese cars despite there being a huge car industry in Europe.

It really is beautiful!

What about bat guano?

> Each night, workers cover the "buffets" (credenzas) with sheets of leather. In the morning the library is cleaned of bat guano [0]

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biblioteca_Joanina#cite_note-W...

Where do they poop?

Everywhere! The article says the staff have to cover tables and desks with leather sheets because of raining guano.

A big downside to indoor pest control with bats, to be sure.

Counterbalanced by the upside that the librarians don't have to do double duty as pest control, although the absurd mental image of them handling the task in a similar fashion as the bats doing it is rather amusing.

Bat(h)rooms.

Nice !

Reply on news.ycombinator.com