Gives New Meaning to Booking a Room

Hotels Add Libraries as Amenity to Keep Guests Inside. (The New York Times, 7/29/2013)

Excerpt:   Reading material in many hotel rooms has become about as spare as it can be — open the desk drawer and it might hold a Gideon Bible and a Yellow Pages. 

But some hotels are giving the humble book another look, as they search for ways to persuade guests, particularly younger ones, to spend more time in their lobbies and bars. They are increasingly stocking books in a central location, designating book suites or playing host to author readings. While the trend began at boutique hotels like the Library Hotel in New York, the Heathman Hotel in Portland, Ore., and the Study at Yale in New Haven, it is expanding to chain hotels.

Related articles:

Hotel libraries:  Shelf life.  (The Economist, 5/8/2013)

Excerpt:  This is why I’m rather taken with the work of a company called the Ultimate Library, which chooses and supplies books on behalf of its hotel clients for use in library, lounge and individual rooms.

Hotels add libraries for gadget-laden guests.  (USA Today, 1/11/2013)

Excerpt:   It's not a fancy or particularly extensive library, but book lovers and history buffs alike may like the fact that they can pick up a copy of Pride and Prejudice or a vintage, leather-bound volume of United States Supreme Court Reports and sit on the tufted couch to flip the pages.  (Capitol Hill Hotel)