Take a look at history's most famous - and most infamous - librarians Janet Bailey What many people may not know is that the profession of librarian is actually an ancient one. It may even be prehistoric. Think back to those pictures of cave paintings or drawings — those are tales from ancient novelists. Those stories, like those of Lascaux in south central France, have multiple authors reflected on the wall. The person who created the paint and lighting and ladders for those tales to be created, were ancient librarians, the organizers of tales. Eratosthenes was a librarian that worked in the library at Alexandria, Egypt. He was from Cyrene, which is located in what is now modern Libya. During his life he wrote nine works on different topics on mathematics, philosophy, chronology, literary criticism, grammar, poetry and even comedies.