One of life’s little pleasures is finding money in the pocket of a coat you haven’t worn in a couple seasons. Maybe its the cynic in me, but the feeling of joy is muted by the realization that it has been there the whole time, and I just didn’t know it.

Many people, even in the city, don’t seem to realize that Detroit has one of the country’s top libraries; on Cass ave. across from Wayne State. As of May this year, it was ranked 16th nationally with 7,265,306 books in a national survey by the American Library Association. Located in the heart of the city; and accessible via both major bus lines (SMART, and DDOT) it is a beacon of opportunity for those that know about it and use it.

In addition to offering a ridiculous number of books, it sports one of only 3 “partnership libraries” that help people file patents, in the entire US, according to the homepage for the US patent office (that took some digging ;). A resource like this really should be thought of as “money in our pocket.” By the way, if you swing by, wish her happy birthday – she just turned 140!