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Cruise Ship Libraries:

Floating Bookshelves Lure Land-lubbing Librarians

Emily Dickinson once wrote, “There is no frigate like a book to take us lands away.” Given this, there may be no better combination than a cruise ship and a book to take us lands away both physically and mentally. With many of today’s cruise ships boasting book-filled libraries, you may not need a library visit before sailing.

Imagine a vacation where you get to go with a library. Today, this is the case for most cruises, thanks to a majority of ships now catering to readers with libraries varying greatly in size and scope.

One of life’s great pleasures is finding an ideal book on a library shelf and than finding the perfect place to read it. On a cruise ship, this may involve just a few steps back to a quiet cabin or a deck chair just meant for reading.

Up until about 20 years ago, cruise ship ‘libraries’ generally consisted of a few tattered paperbacks left behind by earlier passengers or a few shelves filled with the latest, though probably not greatest, in pulp fiction. That all changed with the founding of Ocean Books in the early-1980s.

Dianne Coles, a professional specialist librarian and bookseller from Great Britain, undertook a transatlantic crossing aboard Cunard’s famed QE2 in 1978 and was dismayed at the library facility. She found that the bookstock was totally outdated and that the ‘librarian’ staffing it was actually just a crew member performing what was considered punishment duty.

Coles had opened her first bookstore in 1975 and had gone on to develop an international library supply operation for universities and major corporations, as well as a publishing house and an authors’ agency. She saw an opportunity with floating libraries and she was right. She teamed up with John Money, who had a background in sales and marketing for the video and electronics industry, and it’s a partnership that has stood the test of time on land and at sea.

After several years of planning, Coles and Money persuaded Cunard to let them take over the historic ship’s library. In the beginning, Ocean Books provided updates to the bookstock only. But, eventually, the library’s success (now including a bookshop) led to the hiring of a professional librarian .

From this initial library of 3,000 volumes and card catalogs, Ocean Books grew the facility to where it now has more than 7,000 books, a separated bookstore, and two librarians (one runs the bookstore and reference/CD facility and one runs the library). The QE2 now has a unique book ordering program and bar-coding for the bookstock. It is still, in terms of volumes, one of the largest libraries afloat and was completely rebuilt during the QE2’s historic renovation in 1994. Cunard’s upcoming Queen Mary 2 will be even larger than the QE2’s and will be adjacent to a bookshop and cafe’.

Of this first venture, Coles says, “The QE2 library remains the one most closely resembling a land-based library in a small unit. As the QE2 offers the unique transatlantic voyage, when she is at sea six days, the reading material is very broad. She also has a mixed passenger complement, where lecturers and teachers who have been in Europe find material which is helpful in their various studies and passengers who, in the main, read bestseller, biography, history, and travel.”

This success of the QE2’s library led to Ocean Books being sought as the library concessionaire of choice for most of the cruise lines and ships. The company currently has libraries on 91 ships, with 13 new installations in 2001. Ocean Books has grown with the cruise industry, with older ships being fitted with larger and more modern libraries and new ships being built with libraries that would make many small towns happy. They generally update the collections on most ships twice a year.

Libraries are now considered an important passenger amenity to many lines and a review of some of the ships and lines provide insight into how far on-board libraries have come since Coles’ first sailing aboard the QE2. Along with Cunard, leaders in the library movement include: Carnival; sister companies Delta Queen, American Hawaii, and the new United States Lines; World Explorer Cruises (including Semester at Sea); Crystal; Celebrity; Holland America; and, finally, Royal Caribbean’s large library offerings.

Carnival Cruise Lines have certainly become the ‘Fun Ships’ for library lovers. Each of their many new ships seem to have bigger and better libraries, in large part thanks to their legendary interior ship architect, Joe Farcus.

With each new Carnival ship, Farcus has included a creative library space unique from anything in the past. The Imagination was one of the ships that started the trend in 1995, with the Curiosity Library reminiscent of a curiosity shop from the days of Charles Dickens.

“We design Carnival’s ships so guest can find the level of excitement they are comfortable with at any given time,” says Farcus. “The Curiosity Library is a tranquil place where you can sit down and have a drink, read a book, or write a postcard. Unmatched antique European sofas, desks, chairs, tables, bookcases, and floor lamps lend the unique library a quaintly authentic touch.

With the Blue Riband Library, the Paradise features cruise ship history. “The Paradise is the anchor for the Paradise’s central idea of classic ocean liners,” says Farcus, a long-time ship enthusiast. “This room introduces you to many of the famous ocean liners whose names can be found throughout the ship.” The Blue Riband Library also features a replica of the famed Blue Riband trophy, given to the passenger ship with the fastest trans-Atlantic crossing time between Europe and New York.

Carnival’s current floating libraries feature a long list of other highlights, including: Ecstasy (the Explorer’s Club library features a working antique telescope, a five-foot diameter relief globe, hand-painted geographic designs on the walls, and tiny starlights on the ceiling; Inspiration (the Shakespeare Library features 25 of Shakespeare’s best-known quotes painted in Old English script directly on the oak veneer ceiling; and Elation (the Mark Twain Library recreates the romantic Mississippi riverboat era). As with most Carnival ships, these ships offer an eclectic mixture of 400 or so books, ranging from classics to contemporary bestsellers.

Similar to the Elation, but actually cruising on the Mississippi and other U.S. rivers, the Delta Queen Steamboat Company provides passengers with not only a unique river cruise, but interesting floating libraries specifically catering to ‘steamboatin.’ Each of their riverboats have a Riverlorian, an authority about the history of the river and ports who can often be found near the collection of books about rivers, Mark Twain, and steamboats.

The historic Delta Queen offers the Betty Blake Lounge, where passengers can peruse books in a space reminiscent of a Victorian parlor. Their more modern Mississippi Queen and American Queen feature collections of books and memorabilia in cozy libraries nestled in public spaces, with little touches like antique furniture, Tiffany lamps, and glass-fronted bookcases, where you’d almost expect to see Mark Twain.

Sister company American Hawaii Cruises features the ‘Hawaiian Library,’ a floating display of Hawaiian culture and history in the Kama’aina Lounge. In the Kumu’s Study (a kumu is an Hawaiian teacher), there are more books set amidst tropical prints and lots of chairs. The Lanai lounge, cooled by trade winds, may be one of the most classic reading spots afloat. Finally, the company’s new United States Line will offer the Destination Learning Center aboard the ms Patriot, as well as another Kumu Study.

One unique part-time library afloat is also a floating university with lots of books and time (and reason) to use them. The Semester at Sea program is a unique schedule of spring and winter worldwide sailings that carries hundreds of students and a ‘community’ of 55+ seniors all interested in broadening their horizons at sea and on land when in port.

Semester at Sea takes place aboard the Universe Explorer, which is owned by World Explorer Cruises, a company also offering unique ‘educational’ cruises in Alaska and Central America. As one can imagine, the ship’s library caters to the academic nature of its passengers anytime of year.

Incredibly, there are more than 15,000 volumes of precious cargo on the ship, with a heavy concentration on Alaska, where the Universe Explorer sails each summer. “Many of the Alaska titles in our library are not widely available in the lower 48,” says World Explorer’s vice president, Dennis Myrick. “We began building the library’s Alaska section in 1985, purchasing many books at our nine ports-of-call.”

He notes that, in recent years, the number of local Alaskan writers and material written about Alaska has increased. He says, “It’s a hot location for fiction these days.” The rest of the library contains a good collection of encyclopedias, reference books, classics of literature, and assorted non-fiction. “Many passengers say its better than their hometown library,” Myrick adds.

Crystal’s upscale Harmony and Symphony each have more than 2,000 books, with floor-to-ceiling windows offering sweeping sea views from the reading chairs. A table holding a huge globe is the centerpiece for both ships’ libraries, which exude the luxury nature of this line.

Celebrity’s two-level library space on the new Millennium is a testament to this line’s interest in words. In fact, it’s called Words, and features a vast and varied selection of English language books on the first floor and foreign language titles on the second.

Holland America also takes libraries literally, with huge chairs, ocean views, and around 1,000 titles on most ships. Any of the new Princess Grand Class ships are just as serious about books, with 1,800 books typically packed into large reading libraries. Over at Orient Lines, the international flair is evident, with especially strong destination coverage.

Finally, built in 1999, Royal Caribbean’s Voyager of the Seas was an example of the scale and scope today’s floating libraries could reach. It was the first two-level installation for Ocean Books and, since Royal Caribbean continues to attract an international crowd, included a wide range of foreign language books. All of Royal Caribbean’s new and dramatically large ships feature libraries with 2,000 or so titles.

Ocean Books’ Coles says, “On the ships as a whole, passengers read bestselling fiction and non-fiction, lots of travel coverage, practical advice, reference books, natural history, and large print editions. Other sections generally include children’s, science, classics, and poetry.”

Coles says her client profile is mainly professional, 45 and older, and from the U.S. This is one reason that, though Ocean Books remains based in Romsey (near the popular port of Southampton), they opened a U.S. office in Miami, the cruise capital of the world (based on number of cruise passengers). However, to provide specialized service, they do obtain passenger profiles from each line and also consider the type of ship and the ship’s itinerary (a ship calling in the Caribbean will generally have lighter reading material than one on longer voyages).

Of course, there are many other cruise lines and ships with floating libraries. But you can be assured, if there’s an Ocean Books library aboard, that you don’t have to leave your library at home.