Alcoves, Galleries
From England, where alcoves in old libraries are so fascinating to travelers, I find this passage in The Library Association Record:[184] “The alcove system should probably not be mentioned in an essay on modern methods of book storage.”
Oldest of library methods, the alcove even now lingers where it ought not. As I have said,[185] it is an agreeable feature where solitude and ease are allowable, but it is as much out of place in a public library as lounges would be, wasting space, blocking supervision, delaying service, deluding scholars with the illusion of isolation, and making their nooks the convenient harbors for whisperers. If you must have them, have them plain, and do not let them creep into your reading room in the guise of architectural piers and cornices.
“Alcoves oblige us to go twice as far as there is any need of. A large part of the books might as well have been stored in a compact stack.”—C. A. Cutter.[186]
“Privacy is marred when several readers occupy the same table.”—Fletcher.[187]
“The alcove plan, obsolete and incompatible with further progress.”—Bluemner.[188]
“Wasteful of space, impossible of supervision.”—Champneys.[189]
“The greater distance attendants must go, materially affects the service.
“There is much discomfort to readers who go into an alcove to be out of the way, and who are distracted by the passing to and fro.
“Supervision from the counter is impossible.”—Burgoyne.[190]
And the new-old monstrosity of the early American type elsewhere described[191]—may it never be revived,—the unholy marriage of alcoves and galleries.
Alcoves might be used not only in private or club libraries, but in such rooms as Mr. Foster’s “Standard Library,” or the “Library of the Masters,” Mt. Holyoke College, which may be regarded as cosy club-rooms, in which easy chairs and footrests are not considered out of place.
Galleries survive in the old world, and in old libraries with us, but they have no friends in new libraries. They are better than high wall shelving served by ladders. If less than 2 feet 4 inches wide, and if approached by spiral stairs, they are nuisances to be abolished.