• Students who want to explore how "libraries" were invented as publicly accessible forms of great private book collections should read Kenneth M. Setton , “From Medieval to Modern Library,” Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, Vol. 104, No. 4, Dedication of Library Hall of the American Philosophical Society, Autumn General Meeting, November, 1959. (Aug. 15, 1960), pp. 371-390. Available online from this stable URL: http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0003-049X%2819600815%29104%3A4%3C371%3AFMTML%3E2.0.CO%3B2-Z. 

• Students interested in how modern print libraries are organized should spend a little while exploring the Library of Congress Classification System and the Dewey Decimal Classification System, both of which are now in use in the Julia Rogers Library.  To see Thomas Jefferson's library's organizational plan, see "A Blueprint of Jefferson's Mind" (Library of Congress) or, better yet, visit the reconstuction of that library at the LoC, itself.  Some other manuscript and print libraries (ex-Maureen Price's blog entry, "Limitless Libraries," 6/13/2010).  Available at: http://notesonavisuallife.blogspot.com/  

• Among Walt Whitman's earliest jobs was working as a typesetter in a Brooklyn printshop.  Throughout his career, he remained closely engaged with the book design, cover art and lettering, illustrations, typesetting, and countless other details necessary to create editions of his books.  In 2005, the Iowa Museum of Art sponsored an exhibition of Whitman editions, "Whitman Making Books / Books Making Whitman," which showcased examples of the complex history of WW's poetic publications.  Ed Folsom's catalogue essay, "Whitman Making Books / Books Making Whitman: A Catalog and Commentary," is available, copiously digitally illustrated, at The Walt Whitman Archive at this Web address: https://whitmanarchive.org/criticism/current/anc.00150.html  Goucher's James Wilson Bright Collections contains a copy of one early edition (1860) of Leaves of Grass.  Students interested in book design, Whitman, or bibliography could spend some time with this volume and check its current bibliographic description in the OCLC record of Goucher's library catalog.  They also could examine the layout of individual poems to analyze their typography, type-setting and page layout for signs of Whitman's poetic and printing strategies.  The Garrett Library at the Evergreen Mansion, part of the JHU Library system, also contains at least seven copies of early editions of Whitman's works, including an 1855 first edition of Leaves of Grass which could be compared with the 1860.  Students wishing to work in the Garrett Library should contact this course's instructor and Earle Havens, curator of the Garrett Library, to arrange permissions and schedule working sessions.
  

•  For a purely entertaining attempt to imagine the result of an alien civilization's conversion of an entire planet into a self-sustaining system of culture preservation (i.e., "a Library"), see this brief clip of "Forbidden Planet" (1956).       The scientist, "Doctor Morbius" (Walter Pigeon) is explaining to two astronauts from Earth what the civilization called "the Krell" accomplished in a million years before they were all destroyed without a trace in a single night, leaving their planet / power-station / Library to look after itself for 20,000 years until Morbius' space expedition discovered it.  (Hint: then they, too, were wiped out, all but the scientist and "the scientist's beautiful daughter," one of the origins of that sci-fi cliche.)

[If you are specifically interested in working in the publishing business, read W&A Chapter 6, "Editorial Procedures" (90-126).  They give a good brief introduction to what editors do to manuscript or typescript texts to ready them for publication.  It's invaluable work.  Most authors, unlike Whitman (above), have too much on their minds to be bothered with textual edition and publication.]