Editing Library

'''Libraries''' are [[locations]]. At a library, [[scholar]]s can write [[book]]s (scrolls, codices, and quires) and [[scribe]]s can create copies. Any dwarves in your fortress will go to libraries to read books or idle around, giving them happy [[thought]]s.

If the library permits [[visitor]]s, scholars from civilizations around the world will come to your library, often bringing books of their own. Scholars will engage in various [[topic]]s with your scholars and each other, and will sometimes write their own books while visiting (using your supply of writing material in the process). These books effectively become property of your fortress, as the author usually doesn't take their books away upon leaving. On rare occasions, they will petition to become a permanent part of your fortress for the purpose of studying.

* Hit {{k|i}} to designate the zone for your library. Set it to a meeting area with {{k|m}}, hit {{k|l}} to designate it as a location. See the [[locations]] page for more details.

* Build [[bookcase]]s to store written books.

* Build [[container]]s to store writing material (blank quires and [[scroll]]s). (not paper sheets, they ''must'' be made into blank scrolls/books ''before'' writing)

==Preventing Book Theft==

The first library is for reading and copying. Assign your scribes to work here. Restrict it to citizens only, to prevent visitors from reading and then stealing the books stored there. Give this library the full range of library furniture: containers, chairs, tables, and bookcases.

The second library is for research and writing. Assign your scholars to work here. Allow all visitors to use this library, so that visiting scholars will congregate here and write new books. Don't make this library too big, or the scholars won't be close enough to start their discussions.

The second library should have no bookcases. This prevents books in your first library from coming within reach of visitors who might steal them, but it doesn't prevent the theft of books written within the second library. To prevent those thefts, the second library should not contain any tables. To write a book, a scholar needs a chair in a library with a table next to the chair, but there's no check on whether the table is inside the library. So, put a table next to each chair, and then cut those tables out of the library location. This means that each new book written in your fortress will come into existence on a table outside a library, so your dwarves will eventually pick it up and move it to a bookshelf in the citizens-only library.

It was [http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=156319.420 discovered] that putting an unlinked lever in the back of a library, assigning only the [[scholar]]s and [[scribe]]s to use it, then assigning them to pull the lever, with high priority on repeat: due to Dwarven Psychology, they will find themselves unable to resist reading, writing, or pondering something. This is a good way to increase the productivity of your fortresses' best and brightest.

Libraries have an effect in world gen based on the original and copied books that are there.  Every year, each library gets five turns to pick a book.  If the book has a poetic/music/dance form, it has a chance to make that form well-known in the entire parent civ, as a form of cultural diffusion.  If the book promotes a value at a certain level, it makes a roll against the author's skill roll when they made the book.  The local site civ can have their values shifted by 1-2 point (it takes 10 or more to change the visible text for the value), and the parent civ can also be shifted a point, and all sites under the parent civ have a chance to be shifted a point as well.