Prevent Java from loading library more than once <p>I have several classes that use the same JNI library, called "jni". In each of those classes, I have a System.loadLibrary() call in the class's static initializer:</p> <pre><code>Class class1 { static{ System.loadLibrary("jni"); } ... } Class class2 { static{ System.loadLibrary("jni"); } ... } </code></pre> <p>The only problem is, I only want System.loadLibrary() to be called once, since it can take a while. Is there an easy and clean way to prevent multiple loadings of the same library?</p>