Chapter 81: Librarian Ernest (2). The Librarian of the Sealed Coffin
East of Aldridge.
Even as she walked toward the Sealed Coffin, Eris couldn’t shake off her curiosity.
‘But why would a trading company build something like a library?’
At least in Eris’s mind, a library wasn’t the kind of facility designed to turn a profit.
For one, books were expensive. Just acquiring and placing them required a considerable amount of capital, and there weren’t many ways to recoup that investment—aside from charging an entry fee to those who came in.
Charging rental fees for borrowing books?
‘Nobles would rather buy books than look cheap by borrowing them, and most commoners don’t have the credit. Even if they don’t mean to steal them, they could get stolen by someone else or damaged, and they wouldn’t be able to properly compensate for the loss.’
So in most countries, “libraries” were either attached to educational institutions, or private collections opened to the public by nobles or wealthy individuals.
In short, it wasn’t a field the profit-driven trading companies would typically touch.
If there was any remotely rational explanation, it might be that the company was aiming for long-term gains by targeting the students of the Aldridge Training School.
After all, as long as national policy didn’t change, new students would keep coming to the school, and some of them, like Eris now, would find their way into the library.
Step.