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Here are some pieces on how Thomas Edison used libraries for his self
education.
"Deafness probably drove me to reading," he reflected later. He was among
the first people to use the Detroit Free Library-with card number 33-and he
systematically read through it shelf by shelf. He read literature. He was
thrilled by Victor Hugo's new romantic epic, Les Miserables, especially
the stories of lost children. He talked so much about the book that his friends
called him "Victor Hugo" Edison.
At age 11, Tom's
parents tried to appease his ever more voracious appetite for knowledge by
teaching him how to use the resources of the local library. This was the
earliest of many factors that ultimately led him to prefer learning through independent self instruction.
Starting with the last book on the bottom shelf,
Tom started to read what he hoped would be "every book in the building."
However, his mother advised him to be more selective.... By age 12, he had not only completed Gibbon's Rise And Fall
Of The Roman Empire, Sears' History Of The World, and Burton's Anatomy Of
Melancholy, he had devoured The World Dictionary of Science and a number of
works on practical Chemistry.
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