Cool Bookish Places

A Gorgeous Corporate Library

Greg Zimmerman

Staff Writer

Greg Zimmerman blogs about contemporary literary fiction at The New Dork Review of Books and holds down a full-time gig as a trade magazine editor. Follow him on Twitter: @NewDorkReview.

You’ve surely heard about trendy tech companies with on-site daycare, gourmet chefs, workout facilities, and even a one-story slide.

But how about employee libraries? I started out this post determined to find several examples of corporate employee libraries, but frankly, there don’t seem to be too many out there. What gives?

Here is an awesome one, though — it’s at a San Francisco start-up called Quid.

Quid-library_20680

Yes, that appears to be bookish wallpaper, but according to this story in Inc., the employee library itself actually comprises more than 5,000 books. Here’s another photo from the Inc. story:

quid-main_20710

Pretty sweet, huh?

Finally, here’s one more — from a Chinese company called Offshore Oil Engineering Co., Ltd.

offshore oil

According to the company’s website touting its corporate culture, the headquarters facility includes a “dispensary and unmarried employee library.” What, married people aren’t allowed to read in China?