Hotel Libraries An Increasing Trend

Hotels are starting to open up libraries for discerning book lovers. USA Today reported that Capital Hill Hotel located near the Library of Congress has a newly minted library.

Hotels around the world have been making libraries a part of their atmosphere including hotels in Dallas, New York, London and Chicago.

"The (new space) gives guests a chance to congregate instead of staying in their rooms," says Ian Harvey, the Capital Hill Hotel's general manager to USA Today. "They can play cards, hold a meeting or read a good book."

Marc Hoffman who is chief operating officer of Sunstone Investors, that owns 30 hotels said to USA Today that the library idea is about engaging guests so they hang out and odds are they might eventually order something to eat or drink at the hotel.

"It's all part of this bigger picture of taking public spaces and making them into places where people will sit and generate revenue, instead of what the spaces were in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s, places where people walked through," he said.

At the Renaissance Hotel in Washington D.C. Hoffman said they purchased more than 5000 books to fill the library.

The stylish Nomad hotel in New York City opened its Library Bar which joins library and bar in one setting. It incorporates floor-to-ceiling bookshelves and a spiral staircase which is imported from France.

The idea of a library in hotels is an interesting contrast to kindles and tablets and wifi enabled in hotels. It brings you back to an era where reading a book and drinking a cocktail was a leisurely norm and perhaps, encourages guests to sit down and relax and enjoy themselves while staying at the hotel.

London's One Aldwych hotel also opened a lounge that includes books, newspapers, iPads and magazines combining the modern and the old-school in one comfortable room. New York's hip Trump Soho also recently installed new furniture in its library called the Library at Koi Soho. Books on fashion, art and architecture can be found there.