Librarians Used To Be More Tolerant

Via the indispensible Hit & Run we learn the true, untold history of flying carpets!

Ben Sherira writes that the great library of Alexandria, founded by Ptolemy I, kept a large stock of flying carpets for its readers. They could borrow these carpets in exchange for their slippers, to glide back and forth, up and down, among the shelves of papyrus manuscripts.

That was one of the things that made the library of Alexandria so great; the ones I frequent won't even allow roller skates.