athenaeum UK (also atheneum US) 
noun

- a building containing a reading room or library.

- a building or room in which books, periodicals, and newspapers are kept for use; a literary or scientific association.

- an institution, such as a literary club or scientific academy, for the promotion of learning; a place, such as a library, where printed materials are available for reading.

Merriam-Webster, Collins English Dictionary, American Heritage Dictionary

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WORD ORIGIN

The word traces back to the ancient Greek Athēnaion — literally "The temple of Athena" — a building in Athens where professors taught, poets recited, and scholars gathered. The name entered Latin as Athenaeum, referring to the school founded by the Emperor Hadrian around 135 AD near the Capitoline Hill in Rome. Hadrian's institution employed professors of rhetoric, grammar, philosophy, and law, and was considered a kind of advanced university for students from across the empire. The site was lost to history until 2009, when construction of Rome's Metro C line at Piazza Venezia unexpectedly uncovered its remains.

The English word first appears in 1727, initially referring to the original Greek temple. By 1799 it had acquired its modern sense of "literary club-room or reading room," and by 1807 it was being used for "literary or scientific club." The spelling varies between atheneum (American English) and athenaeum (British English).

The goddess Athena herself — Roman equivalent: Minerva — was the deity of wisdom, craft, and strategic warfare, making her an apt patron for institutions devoted to knowledge.

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TO BE READ (TBR)

The art of letting books pile up, unread, with every intention of getting to them — the Japanese have a word for it: tsundoku.

Karl Lagerfeld amassed over 300,000 books. Hemingway had 9,000. Marilyn Monroe — written off as a dumb blonde by almost everyone — owned 400, including first editions of Kerouac and Ellison. But probably none of them had read every page of every book.

A library may be not just a record of what we've read,… it's also a declaration of what we still want to become.

Helga & Paul Smith

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SYNONYMS

academy, a cathedral of books, a city's memory, a house of wisdom, a temple of learning, a well of knowledge, archive of knowledge, ATHENAEUM (UK), ATHENEUM (US), bibliotheca, book depository, book society, centre for scholarship, centre of learning, cultural centre (institute), culture hub, forum for ideas, hall of learning, house of knowledge (learning), intellectual society, learned society, library club, literary club (institute, society), lyceum, palace of learning, philosophical society, place of learning, reading room (society), sanctum of learning, scholarly club (society), seat of learning, study centre (circle)

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SMUGGLE OWAD into a conversation today, say something like:

"Booklovers appreciate the sanctuary of their own ATHENAEUM,... a quiet place to read and reflect."

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Paul & Helga Smith