Linn-Henley Research Library

This building served as Birmingham's central public library from 1927 to 1985, and today it houses the library system's archives, special collections and government documents as the Linn-Henley Research Library. Staff and visitors have long said it is haunted by Fant Thornley, who directed the Birmingham Public Library from 1953 to 1970. They report objects moved from where they were left, doors opening on their own, the elevator running late at night, and every so often the smell of a Chesterfield, Thornley's brand, in rooms where no one has smoked in decades. The third-floor auditorium is said to be his favourite place. It is a gentle haunting, less a ghost story than a librarian who never quite clocked out.