Kaunas Municipal Vincas Kudirka Public Library has recently unlocked an old safe held in its premises since the early 20th century. Librarians discovered dozens of old books, some with gold-edged pages and leather bindings.
Located in the library itself, the safe is presumed to not have been opened for around 70 years.
Librarians reported an impressive find of around 70 books, most of them seemingly 19th century French editions. The books are yet to be inspected by experts.
Monika Straupytė, manager at the Vincas Kudirka Library, says that the staff will be contacting bookbinders about safe handling of the books and their potential exhibition.
Some of the discovered books had gold-edged pages. The seemingly oldest one was bound in leather and wood, printed in Cyrillic.
The public library owns two old safes. They were installed in the building back when it housed the Lithuanian commercial bank Ūkio Bankas, defunct since 2013.
“The library was opened in 1960 and, as far as we know, the safe has not been opened since then,” says Straupytė. “However, the safe specialist reassured us that the safe was opened the same way he did it now, by drilling holes, and was later sealed again, so we cannot say when the books were put there.”
Currently, the oldest book in the library's possession is the 1926 edition of Postil by Mikalojus Daukša.
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