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Church History Library

Fun Facts


“Fun Facts” 

 

  1. The two freezer units in the Church History Library are equivalent to 3,100 home freezers.
  2. The shelving in the archival storage units is 21 miles long. 
  3. There are 40,500 shelves in the library. That equals 28 miles, which is the distance from Salt Lake City to Hill Air Force Base.
  4. Over 1 million items were moved from the Church Office Building to the Church History Library during April and May. The move took 19 days.
  5. Over 300 people helped move the historical collections from the Church Office Building to the Church History Library. Participants included employees, missionaries, and movers from Bailey’s Moving and Storage.
  6. The team that moved the historical collections from the Church Office Building to the Church History Library ranged in age from 19 to 91.
  7. Moving the historical collections from the Church Office Building to the Church History Library took more than 10,000 hours.
  8. The size of the Church History Library is 230,000 square feet (21,000 square meters). That equals four football fields!
  9. 500 to 700 archival collections are added to the Church History Library each year.
  10. 6,000 published items are added to the Church History Library collection each year.
  11. Plans for the Church History Library were announced on April 20, 2005 and ground was broken on October 11, 2005.
  12. The land the Church History Library sits on was originally owned by Heber C. Kimball, First Counselor to President Brigham Young.
  13. This land has been occupied by homes, a school, a mill, a blacksmith shop, a pharmacy, a cafe, an ice-cream shop, a dance academy, a bowling alley, an advertising agency, and a missionary training center.
  14. 12 tennis courts would fit in the library’s 12 main storage units.
  15. Each of the building’s 40,500 storage shelves has an individual identification label, enabling Church History to know the location of every item in the collection.
  16. The cold storage vaults in the library could store 3.2 million ice cream sandwiches on the shelves.
  17. All of the recycled paper from the downtown Church campus will come through the Church History Library that’s 4.5 tons of paper each month!
  18. There are 36,500 carpet squares in the Church History Library building.
  19. There are 270,000 books in the Church History Library collection. When stacked on top of each other, the books would be as tall as Mt. McKinley in Alaska!
  20. There are 16,000 microfilm rolls in the Church History Library collection. Placed end to end, they would reach 420 miles, or from Salt Lake City to Las Vegas, Nevada!
  21. There are 3.5 million patriarchal blessings preserved in the Church History Library. If placed end to end, they would reach from Salt Lake City to Kansas City, Kansas.
  22. There are 117 offices and 158 cubicles in the Church History Library.
  23. There are 450 phones in the Church History Library.
  24. This building required 18,000 cubic yards of cement and 810 tons of structural steel.
  25. 100,000 cubic yards of dirt were excavated for this building’s foundation.
  26. Over a ton of stone was used in the building’s exterior.
  27. In 1900, there were only 10 employees in the Office of the Church Historian. Today, there are 234.
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