You don’t often see superheroes taking advantage of their local libraries, which is weird when you think about it. Superheroes often need information on a host of odd topics, they’re usually nerds, and libraries are exactly the kind of valuable public service that any self-respecting caped crusader should be eager to promote. Here are a few notable instances when our heroes exercised their library cards instead of their muscles–and no, private libraries like the one at Wayne Manor don’t count.

Let’s start as every good article should: with Squirrel Girl. The eponymous heroine of Unbeatable Squirrel Girl #36 defeated the ghost of a Victorian-era librarian who turned off all the sound in New York. How did she do it? By doing research at Empire State University Library and getting the ghost a job there so she can shush people to her heart’s content, that’s how!

Team Spidey wound up at the library in not one but two episodes of Spidey and His Amazing Friends. In “Superhero Hiccups,” Green Goblin breaks into the library to find information on a weapon belonging to the Pumpkin King (not Jack Skellington, sorry), and in “The Case of the Burgling Book Bandit,” Doc Ock absconds with the city library’s entire collection of detective novels.

In Teen Titans Go! to the Library, Raven attempts to find some peace and quiet away from her teammates at the local library.

Even the notably non-bookish Thor visited a library at least once. In Thor: God of Thunder #3, he goes to the Halls of All-Knowing, a fancy gods-only library that no grubby mortal is permitted to enter.

The original Batgirl was a librarian in her civilian identity of Barbara Gordon. She sometimes used that position to do research for her night job, as we see in Detective Comics #369.

When Barbara made the leap to television, she retained her librarian job and was seen multiple times at the Gotham City Library in the ’60s Batman show. Even the unaired Batgirl pilot emphasized this, having the most pathetic ever version of Killer Moth use the library as the setting for a would-be kidnapping.

Even before Batgirl’s debut, the library still played a significant role in several episodes. In “Ring of Wax,” the Riddler breaks into the library’s rare book vault and glues Batman and Robin to the floor (no books were harmed). In “Death in Slow Motion,” the Riddler again makes use of the library, this time by luring the Dynamic Duo to a branch that has been temporarily closed due to insufficient funding–a development Batman laments is “shocking, shocking!”–to spring a trap.

So remember, kids: support your local library. If you don’t, not only will you make it easier for supervillains–interpret and apply that term as you will–to execute their nasty schemes, you will also make Batman very, very sad.