Impossible at IU

Is it really impossible to check out all the books in the library?

You could spend a lifetime reading IU’s collection of books and not even begin to make a dent in the list. Bloomington campus libraries contain 7,809,797 bound volumes. It is the largest collection in the state of Indiana.

Do the math 158 days of classes each year x 4 years = 632 days. That’s 12,357 books per day of your academic life to check out every book in the library.

Is it really impossible to steal a fish from the Showalter Fountain?

Yeah, right. Not only is it possible, stealing the 400 to 600-pound fi sh has been done as a symbol of every emotional hiccup on this campus. IU wins the 1987 NCAA basketball championship and a fish shows up in front of an apartment wearing an IU shirt and red painted lipstick. Bobby Knight gets fired and the fish swims away again. Those fish found their way back. This past August, one of the fish disappeared and is still out of water.

Sherry Rouse, curator of campus art, says the poachers planned the netting down to every detail.

“All we know is they had tools and took it deliberately,” she says. “We found stuff at the bottom of the fountain that they left — the screws and the mounts.

 When the physical plant drained the fountain for winter, workers took out all the fi sh. Before graduation, the fi sh will be reinstalled with more secure attachments.