The Brakebills Library is the collection of magical texts and reference material for the students of Brakebills University. The attic of the library serves as the dormitory facility for students of Knowledge Magic.
History[]
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Early History[]
The Brakebills Library was established after the Brakebills University's official establishment in 1763. Over the centuries, because visiting scholars had been so aggressive in casting locator spells to find the books they wanted, and the use of spells of concealment to hide those same books from rival scholars, the entire library was more or less opaque to magic.[1]
During the 19th Century, Brakebills hired a librarian with a highly Romantic imagination who envisioned a mobile library, in which the books fluttered from shelf to shelf like birds, reorganizing themselves spontaneously under their own power in response to searches. For the first few months, the effect was quite dramatic, and a painting of the scene survived as a mural behind the circulation desk, depicting enormous atlases soaring around the place like condors, but the system eventually turned out to be impractical as the wear on the spines of the books was too costly and the books become horribly disobedient. The librarian's successor attempted to domesticate the books again, but by the time Quentin Coldwater attended Brakebills there were still stragglers who flapped around near the ceiling.[1]