Shops Island National Library

The Shops Island National Library is a large string of libraries with many locations across Shops Island. It's one of the biggest and most valuable libraries on the Shopper mainland. Its headquarters is located in Shops City, Central Shops. Everyday, many new books arrive at each location and are constantly stocked up, adding to the amount of literature in these facilities. Everyone can read the books for free and can also rent them for free, but to buy them for permanent use, they must pay between five and thirty WB$. The initial foundation of the initiative was back in November of 2013. The idea became very popular among many cities, and this new system of libraries began construction. By December 4th 2013, all of the libraries were successfully opened for public use

History
Libraries had existed on Shops ever since cities had been created. However, there was never any official library system, and thus some makeshift libraries had more books than they could handle, while others didn't have enough books to cover all topics. After Southern Shops governor Penquino noticed the lack of literature in his resident state in 2011, he set up the Library of Southern Shops Island (LSS), donating every book that he had in his personal library (thousands of books that he had collected over his lifetime, due to being an avid reader). This library, now headquartered in Vonkouver, reached out to schools and libraries everywhere to create an organized system: cataloging all books and moving them around to where they need to be. This system proved to be very efficient for the state, and by the time he was re-elected in 2013, the state's literacy rates and even average student GPA were increased. The reason a full out library system wasn't introduced when Penquino was vice-president was for a few reasons: It was costly, and the government didn't want to lay out a full plan until they received positive results. Plus, he was too busy as VP to focus on the library at that time.

After Penquino was re-elected in 2013, he started delegations in the Common Legislature to create a national library system. The bill was finally passed, after ample discussion, on December 1st, 2013, creating the Shops Island National Library and Archives. A new library headquarters was built in Shops City, with the backup headquarters being the library in Vonkouver. All books, locations, and data from the LSS were transferred to the national system, and soon libraries in other states that had similar motives as the LSS were all merged into the national system. The library still grows every day, but so far things are looking good. The library's constant additions and an ever-expanding list of literature has made the system quite formidable as well as their impressive manpower, who are working towards a more literate Shops (that isn't full of simply "tech jocks").

Archives
The Shops Island National Archives were created at the same time as the national library system. They don't function as a library per-say, as you can't check out books here, or even have access to certain documents. The Archives are located in the same building as the library's headquarters in Shops City, and it's purpose is to store all historical documents, as well as certain public literature and film. Literature and film saved in the archives must be voted upon by a special council, and deemed "culturally (if a lot of penguins read/watch it), historically, or morally (written/filmed by Shoppers) significant".

In early 2014, the Frosian High Archives facility in the Frosian Islands, the national archives for the former FRG, was re-branded as a child branch of the the Shopper National Archives.