Borrowed Books

Andrew did.

Andrew was born in Scotland into a poor family … they were so poor in act that they decided to pack up and leave for Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Life wasn’t easy for Andrew … at just 14 years of age he was working full-time in the local telegraph office just to help support his family and it didn’t pay well at all … the one good thing though was he was introduced to a local businessman who allowed poor kids like Andrew to come and borrow any of the 400 books in his personal library collection … Andrew read everything he could get his hands on … and vowed that when he was wealthy someday he’d open his own library to others too. Well someday came pretty soon as Andrew leveraged what he learned in part from educating himself through those books to build and then sell one of the biggest companies in the world … and true to his word he did exactly what he said he was going to do.

Today, Andrew Carnegie’s real legacy isn’t that he was one of the richest men in the world ever .. or that he built Carnegie Hall in New York City or that he gave away over $75 billion in today’s money to worthwhile charities … his real legacy is that he built over 3,000 libraries across the US, Canada, England and Ireland so that anyone could better themselves … and 100 years later those libraries still stand .. including Memorial Public Library here in Calgary at the corner of 12th Ave and 2nd St SW.

Memorial Public Library is a great idea because helping share knowledge makes the world a much better place!