Library Buildings and Furnishings.
Proceeding now to the subject of library buildings, reading-rooms, and furnishings, it must be remarked at the outset that very few rules can be laid down which are of universal application. The architectural plans, exterior and interior, of such great institutions as the Library of Congress, or the Boston Public Library, with their costly marbles, splendid mural decorations, and electric book-serving machinery, afford no model for the library building in the country village. Where the government of a nation or a wealthy city has millions to devote for providing a magnificent book-palace for its library, the smaller cities or towns have only a few thousands. So much the more important is it, that a thoroughly well-considered plan for building should be marked out before beginning to build, that no dollars should be wasted, or costly alterations required, in order to fit the interior for all the uses of a library.
The need of this caution will be abundantly evident, in the light of the unfit and inconvenient constructions seen in so many public libraries, all over the country. So general has been the want of carefully planned and well-executed structures for books, that it may fairly be said that mistakes have been the rule, and fit adaptation the exception. For twenty years past, at every meeting of the American Library Association, the reports upon library buildings have deplored the waste of money in well-meant edifices designed to accommodate the library service, but successful only in obstructing it. Even in so recent a construction as the Boston Public Library building, so many defects and inconveniences were found after it was supposed to have been finished, that rooms had to be torn out and re-constructed on three floors, while the pneumatic tube system had been found so noisy as to be a public nuisance, and had to be replaced by a later improved construction.
One leading cause for the mistakes which are so patent in our library buildings is that they are not planned by librarians but mainly by architects. The library authorities commonly take it for granted that the able architect is master of his profession, and entrust him with the whole design, leaving out of account the librarian, as a mere subordinate, entitled only to secondary consideration. The result is a plan which exhibits, in its prominent features, the architect's skill in effective pilasters, pillars, architraves, cornices, and balustrades, while the library apartments which these features ornament are planned, not for convenient and rapid book-service, but mainly for show. It is the interest of architects to magnify their profession: and as none of them has ever been, or ever will be a librarian, they cannot be expected to carry into effect unaided, what they have never learned; namely, the interior arrangements which will best meet the utilities of the library service. Here is where the librarian's practical experience, or his observation of the successes or failures in the reading-room and delivery service of other libraries, should imperatively be called in. Let him demonstrate to the governing board that he knows what is needed for prompt and economical administration, and they will heed his judgment, if they are reasonable men. While it belongs to the architect to plan, according to his own ideas, the outside of the building, the inside should be planned by the architect in direct concert with the librarian, in all save merely ornamental or finishing work.
We do not erect a building and then determine whether it is to be a school house or a church: it is planned from the start with strict reference to the utilities involved; and so should it always be with a library.
In treating this subject, I shall not occupy space in outlining the proper scheme of building and interior arrangement for a great library, with its many distinct departments, for such institutions are the exceptions, while most libraries come within the rule of very moderate size, and comparatively inexpensive equipment. The first requisite for a public library, then, is a good location. It is important that this should be central, but it is equally important that the building should be isolated—that is, with proper open space on all sides, and not located in a block with other buildings. Many libraries have been destroyed or seriously damaged by fire originating in neighboring buildings, or in other apartments in the same building; while fires in separate library buildings have been extremely rare. It would be a wise provision to secure a library lot sufficiently large in area to admit of further additions to the building, both in the rear and at the side; and with slight addition to the cost, the walls and their supports may be so planned as to admit of this. Committees are seldom willing to incur the expense of an edifice large enough to provide for very prolonged growth of their collection; and the result is that the country is full of overcrowded libraries, without money to build, and prevented from expanding on the spot because no foresight was exercised in the original construction or land purchase, to provide for ready increase of space by widening out, and removing an outer wall so as to connect the old building with the new addition. If a library has 10,000 volumes, it would be very short-sighted policy to plan an edifice to contain less than 40,000, which it is likely to reach in from ten to forty years.
The next requisite to a central and sufficient site is that the location must be dry and airy. Any low site, especially in river towns, will be damp, and among the enemies of books, moisture holds a foremost place. Next, the site should afford light on all sides, and if necessary to place it near any thoroughfare, it should be set back so as to afford ample light and ventilation in front.
It need hardly be said that every library building should be fire-proof, after the many costly lessons we have had of the burning of public libraries at home and abroad. The material for the outside walls may be brick or stone, according to taste or relative cost. Brick is good enough, and if of the best quality, and treated with stone trimmings, is capable of sufficiently ornate effects, and is quite as durable as any granite or marble. No temptation of cheapness should ever be allowed to introduce wood in any part of the construction: walls, floors, and roof should be only of brick, stone, iron, or slate. A wooden roof is nothing but a tinder-box that invites the flames.
In general, two stories is a sufficient height for library buildings, except in those of the largest class, and the upper floors may be amply lighted by sky-lights. The side-lights can hardly be too numerous: yet I have seen library buildings running back from a street fifty to seventy-five feet, without a single window in either of the side walls. The result was to throw all the books on shelves into a gloomy shade for many hours of each day.
The interior construction should be so managed as to effect the finding and delivery of books to readers with the greatest possible economy of time and space. No shelves should be placed higher than can be reached by hand without mounting upon any steps or ladders; i. e., seven to seven and a half feet. The system of shelving should all be constructed of iron or steel, instead of surrounding the books on three sides with combustible wood, as is done in most libraries. Shelves of oxidized metal will be found smooth enough to prevent any abrasion of bindings. Shelves should be easily adjustable to any height, to accommodate the various sizes of books.
In calculating shelf capacity, one and a half inches thickness a volume is a fair average, so that each hundred volumes would require about thirteen feet of linear shelf measurement. The space between uprights, that is, the length of each shelf, should not exceed two and a half feet. All spaces between shelves should be 10½ or 11 inches high, to accommodate large octavos indiscriminately with smaller sizes; and a base shelf for quartos and folios, at a proper height from the floor, will restrict the number of shelves to six in each tier.
In the arrangement of the cases or book-stacks, the most economical method is to place book-cases of double face, not less than three feet apart, approached by aisles on either side, so as to afford free passage for two persons meeting or passing one another. The cases may be about ten feet each in length. There should be electric lights between all cases, to be turned on only when books are sought. The cases should be set at right angles to the wall, two or three feet from it, with the light from abundant windows coming in between them. The width of shelves may be from 16 to 18 inches in these double cases, thus giving about eight to nine inches depth to each side. No partition is required between the two sides.
It should be stated that the light obtained from windows, when thrown more than twenty feet, among cases of books on shelves, becomes too feeble for effective use in finding books. This fact should be considered in advance, while plans of construction, lighting, and interior arrangement are being made. All experience has shown that too much light cannot be had in any public library.
Railings and stair-cases for the second or upper floors should be of perforated iron.
The reading-room should be distinct from the book delivery or charging-room, to secure quiet for readers at all hours, avoiding the pressure, hurry and noise of conversation inevitable in a lending library or department. In the reading-room should be shelved a liberal supply of books of reference, and bibliographies, open without tickets to the readers. Next the central desk there should be shelves for the deposit of books reserved day by day for the use of readers. The library chairs, of whatever pattern may be preferred, should always combine the two requisites of strength and lightness. The floor should be covered with linoleum, or some similar floor covering, to deaden sound. Woolen carpets, those perennial breeders of dust, are an abomination.
In a library reading-room of any considerable size, each reader should be provided with table or desk room, not flat but sloping at a moderate angle, and allowing about three feet of space for each reader. These appliances for study need not be single pieces of furniture, but made in sections to accommodate from three to six readers at each. About thirty inches from the floor is a proper height.
For large dictionaries, atlases, or other bulky volumes, the adjustable revolving case, mounted on a pedestal, should be used.
For moving any large number of volumes about the library, book-trucks or barrows, with noiseless rubber wheels, are required.
Every library will need one or more catalogue cases to hold the alphabetical card catalogue. These are made with a maximum of skill by the Library Bureau, Boston.
The location of the issue-counter or desk is of cardinal importance. It should be located near the centre of the system of book-cases, or near the entrance to the stack, so as to minimize the time consumed in collecting the books wanted. It should also have a full supply of light, and this may be secured by a location directly in front of a large side window. Readers are impatient of delay, and the farther the books are from the issue-counter the longer they will have to wait for them.
Among modern designs for libraries, that of Dr. W. F. Poole, adapted for the Newberry Library, Chicago, is notable for dividing the library into many departments or separate rooms, the book shelves occupying one half the height of each, or 7½ feet out of 15, the remaining space being occupied by windows. This construction, of course, does not furnish as compact storage for books as the stack system. It is claimed to possess the advantage of extraordinarily good light, and of aiding the researches of readers. But it has the disadvantage of requiring readers to visit widely separated rooms to pursue studies involving several subjects, and of mounting in elevators to reach some departments. A system which brings the books to the reader, instead of the readers travelling after the books, would appear to be more practically useful to the public, with whom time is of cardinal importance.
In all libraries, there should be a receiving or packing room, where boxes and parcels of books are opened and books mended, collated, and prepared for the shelves. This room may well be in a dry and well lighted basement. Two small cloak-rooms for wraps will be needed, one for each sex. Two toilet rooms or lavatories should be provided. A room for the library directors or trustees, and one for the librarian, are essential in libraries of much extent. A janitor's room or sleeping quarters sometimes needs to be provided. A storage room for blanks, stationery, catalogues, etc., will be necessary in libraries of much extent. A periodical room is sometimes provided, distinct from the reading-room or the delivery department. In this case, if several hundred periodicals are taken, an attendant should be always present to serve them to readers, from the shelves or cases where they should be kept in alphabetical order. Without this, and a ticket system to keep track of what are in use, no one can readily find what is needed, nor ascertain whether it is in a reader's hands when sought for. System and the alphabet alone will solve all difficulties.
As to the space required for readers in a periodical room, it may be assumed that about five hundred square feet will accommodate twenty-five readers, and the same proportion for a larger number at one time. A room twenty-five by forty would seat fifty readers, while one twenty-five by twenty would accommodate twenty-five readers, with proper space for tables, &c. The files for newspapers are referred to in another chapter on periodicals.
In a library building, the heating and ventilation are of prime importance. Upon their proper regulation largely depends the health and consequently the efficiency of all employed, as well as the comfort of the reading public. There is no space to enter upon specific descriptions, for which the many conflicting systems, with experience of their practical working, should be examined. Suffice it to say in general, that a temperature not far below nor above 70 degrees Fahrenheit should be aimed at; that the furnace, with its attendant nuisances of noise, dust, and odors, should be outside the library building—not under it; and that electric lighting alone should be used, gas being highly injurious to the welfare of books.
In calculating the space required for books shelved as has been heretofore suggested, it may be approximately stated that every one thousand volumes will require at least eighty to one hundred square feet of floor measurement. Thus, a library of 10,000 volumes would occupy an area of nearly one thousand square feet. But it is necessary to provide also for the continual growth of the collection. To do this, experience shows that in any flourishing public library, space should be reserved for three or four times the number of volumes in actual possession. If rooms are hired for the books, because of inability to build, the library should be so arranged as to leave each alternate shelf vacant for additions, or, in the more rapidly growing divisions, a still greater space. This will permit accessions to be shelved with their related books, without the trouble of frequently moving and re-arranging large divisions of the library. This latter is a very laborious process, and should be resorted to only under compulsion. The preventive remedy, of making sure of space in advance, by leaving a sufficiency of unoccupied shelves in every division of the library, is the true one.
In some libraries, a separate reading-room for ladies is provided. Mr. W. F. Poole records that in Cincinnati such a room was opened at the instance of the library directors. The result was that the ladies made it a kind of social rendezvous, where they talked over society matters, and exhibited the bargains made in their shopping excursions. Ladies who came to study preferred the general reading room, where they found every comfort among well conducted gentlemen, and the "ladies' reading-room" was abandoned, as not fulfilling its object. The same experiment in the Chicago Public Library had the same result.
Some libraries in the larger towns provide a special reading-room for children; and this accomplishes a two-fold object, namely, to keep the public reading-room free from flocks of little people in pursuit of books under difficulties, and to furnish the boys and girls with accommodations of their own. It may be suggested as an objection, that the dividing line as to age is difficult to be drawn: but let each applicant be questioned, and if falling below twelve, or fifteen, or whatever the age limit may be, directed to the juvenile reading-room, and there need be no trouble. Of course there will be some quite young readers who are gifted with intelligence beyond their years, and who may dislike to be reckoned as children; but library rules are not made to suit exceptions, but for the average; and as no book need be refused to any applicant in the juvenile department, no just cause of complaint can arise.
In some libraries, and those usually of the larger size, an art room is provided, where students of works on painting, sculpture, and the decorative arts can go, and have about them whatever treasures the library may contain in that attractive field. The advantages of this provision are, first, to save the necessity of handling and carrying so many heavy volumes of galleries of art and illustrated books to the general reading-room, and back again, and secondly, to enable those in charge of the art department to exercise more strict supervision in enforcing careful and cleanly treatment of the finest books in the library, than can be maintained in the miscellaneous crowd of readers in the main reading-room. The objections to it concern the general want of room to set apart for this purpose, and the desirability of concentrating the use of books in one main hall or reading-room. Circumstances and experience should determine the question for each library.
Some public libraries, and especially those constructed in recent years, are provided with a lecture-hall, or a large room for public meetings, concerts, or occasionally, even an opera-house, in the same building with the library. There are some excellent arguments in favor of this; and especially where a public benefactor donates to a city a building which combines both uses. The building given by Mr. Andrew Carnegie to the Public Library of Washington will be provided with a small hall suited to meetings, &c. But in all cases, such a public hall should be so isolated from the library reading-room as not to annoy readers, to whom quiet is essential. This end can be effected by having the intervening walls and floors so constructed as completely to deaden sound. A wholly distinct entrance should also be provided, not communicating with the doors and passages leading to the library.
Comparisons are sometimes made as to the relative cost of library buildings to the number of volumes they are designed to accommodate; but such estimates are misleading. The cost of an edifice in which architectural beauty and interior decoration concur to make it a permanent ornament to a city or town, need not be charged up at so much per volume. Buildings for libraries have cost all the way from twenty-five cents up to $4. for each volume stored. The Library of Congress, which cost six million dollars, and will ultimately accommodate 4,500,000 volumes, cost about $1.36 per volume. But it contains besides books, some half a million musical compositions, works of graphic art, maps and charts, etc.
The comparative cost of some library buildings erected in recent years, with ultimate capacity of each, may be of interest. Kansas City Public Library, 132+144, 125,000 vols., $200,000. Newark, N. J. Free Library, 138+216, 400,000 vols., $188,000. Forbes Library, Northampton, Mass. (granite), 107+137, 250,000 vols., $134,000. Fall River, Ms. Library, 80+130, 250,000 vols., $100,000. Peoria, Ill. Public Library (brick), 76+135, $70,000. Smiley Memorial Library, Redlands, Cal. (brick), 96+100, $50,000. Reuben Hoar Library, Littleton, Mass. (brick), 50+57, 25,000 vols., $25,000. Rogers Memorial Library, Southworth, N. Y. 70+100, 20,000 vols., $20,000. Belfast (Me.) Free Library (granite), 27+54, $10,000. Gail-Borden Public Library, Elgin, Ill. (brick), 28+52, $9,000. Warwick, Mass. Public Library (wood), 45+60, 5,000 vols., $5,000.
The largely increased number of public library buildings erected in recent years is a most cheering sign of the times. Since 1895, eleven extensive new library buildings have been opened: namely, the Library of Congress, the Boston Public Library, the Pratt Institute Library, Brooklyn, the Columbia University Library, New York, the Princeton, N. J. University Library, the Hart Memorial Library, of Troy, N. Y., the Carnegie Library, Pittsburgh, the Chicago Public Library, the Peoria, Ill. Public Library, the Kansas City, Mo. Public Library, and the Omaha, Neb. Public Library.
And there are provided for eight more public library buildings, costing more than $100,000 each; namely, the Providence, R. I. Public Library, the Lynn, Mass. Public Library, the Fall River, Mass. Public Library, the Newark, N. J. Free Public Library, the Milwaukee, Wis. Public Library and Museum, the Wisconsin State Historical Society Library, Madison, the New York Public Library, and the Jersey City Public Library.
To these will be added within the year 1900, as is confidently expected, the Washington City Public Library, the gift of Andrew Carnegie, to cost $300,000.
No philanthropist can ever find a nobler object for his fortune, or a more enduring monument to his memory, than the founding of a free public library. The year 1899 has witnessed a new gift by Mr. Carnegie of a one hundred thousand dollar library to Atlanta, the Capital of Georgia, on condition that the city will provide a site, and $5,000 a year for the maintenance of the library. Cities in the east are emulating one another in providing public library buildings of greater or less cost. If the town library cannot have magnificence, it need not have meanness. A competition among architects selected to submit plans is becoming the favorite method of preparing to build. Five of the more extensive libraries have secured competitive plans of late from which to select—namely, the New York Public Library, the Jersey City Public Library, the Newark Free Public Library, the Lynn Public Library, and the Phoebe Hearst building for the University of California, which is to be planned for a library of 750,000 volumes. It is gratifying to add that in several recent provisions made for erecting large and important structures, the librarian was made a member of the building committee—i. e., in the New York Public Library, the Newark Free Public Library, and the Lynn Public Library.
