⚠️This fact has been debunked
This is a well-known urban legend. The myth has been told about multiple universities (IU, Yale, Amherst, Cambridge). Engineers always calculate live loads including books when designing libraries.
The Main Library at Indiana University sinks over an inch every year because when it was built, engineers failed to take into account the weight of all the books that would occupy the building.
Does Indiana University's Library Really Sink Every Year?
You've probably heard this one before: Indiana University's main library is slowly sinking into the ground, dropping over an inch each year, all because some hapless engineer forgot to account for the weight of the books. It's a great story—concrete proof (pun intended) that even experts mess up spectacularly.
There's just one problem: it's completely false.
The Urban Legend Hall of Fame
This isn't even Indiana University's exclusive myth. The exact same story has been told about libraries at Yale, Amherst College, Cambridge University, and countless others. It's the academic equivalent of the alligators-in-the-sewers tale—too perfect to be true.
The myth taps into something we love: brilliant people making dumb mistakes. But here's the thing about structural engineers: calculating loads is literally their entire job.
How Library Design Actually Works
When architects and engineers design a library, they calculate what's called the live load—the weight of everything that will occupy the building after construction. For libraries, this is a massive consideration.
Books are heavy. A single shelf can hold hundreds of pounds, and a library contains thousands of shelves across multiple floors. The Herman B Wells Library (IU's main library) holds millions of volumes. Engineers absolutely accounted for this when designing the foundation in the 1960s.
In fact, library live loads are among the highest in any building type:
- Typical office space: 50-100 pounds per square foot
- Residential areas: 40 pounds per square foot
- Library stack areas: 150 pounds per square foot or more
Missing this calculation would be like a chef forgetting to turn on the oven. It's not just unlikely—it's the fundamental step of the process.
Why the Myth Persists
So why does this story keep circulating? Because it's believable enough and funny enough to share. It plays into our suspicion that bureaucracy and expertise sometimes miss obvious things. Plus, it makes for great campus lore.
Some buildings do settle over time—that's normal as soil compacts under weight. But we're talking fractions of an inch over decades, not the dramatic annual sinking the myth describes.
The Herman B Wells Library stands perfectly sound today, more than 60 years after its completion. No emergency jack-ups, no foundation repairs, no engineering mea culpas. Just millions of books, properly supported, exactly as planned.