CLASSES
Private and Club Libraries
Private libraries, while a frequent problem for architects (in the United States there were over a hundred thousand in 1870, averaging 250 volumes to a library, according to the ninth census) have not much to interest librarians, who are seldom called in to run them. A private library is oftenest a more or less casual collection for the use of the owner and his family. Occasionally it expresses some special taste in reading or collecting. But whatever it includes, it is at the same time a store room and a reading room for a very few persons, as it was in old Roman times, so that it would be fitting for the architect to take the old Roman tone in its treatment, the tone of the Vatican library in miniature. Wall shelving, open or glassed cases, carvings, free decoration, busts above the bookcases, friezes, whatever he thinks appropriate and cozy, may be used in it.
Gladstone in his interesting article on “Books and the Housing of Them”[35] describes an arrangement for twenty thousand volumes (evidently his own library) “all visible, all within easy reach, in a room of quite ordinary size.” He sketches a floor plan of shallow piers or alcoves all around a room 20 × 40, with most of the centre left open for furniture. This plan is worth looking up by an architect charged with planning so large a private or club library.
A club library is only an extension of the private library idea, to be used by many men rather than by a few. Here the tone may be the same, varied perhaps by the first formal monastic features.
Here alcoves might well be used, with no rigid steel stacks, but handsome wooden shelving.
Just few enough men could find quiet seats, with books all around them, a cozy window seat with a leaded window to look out of, not too many other readers or busy attendants to disturb their quiet by hunting books on the neighboring shelves.
A private or club library is a good subject for an architect to exploit, taking beautifully bound books as the key to his ornamental treatment. Quiet, artistic lights are appropriate, rich old woods and decorative rugs; everything that is taboo in a public library. The keynotes should be rest, comfort, literary cosiness, private proprietorship; if anything more, refined hospitality to personal friends.
Proprietary, Institutional
Proprietary. By these I mean what might be called literary clubs, owned in shares, and supported by dues, like Athenæums. Most of these combine some of the features of club libraries, and the reference and circulating functions of public libraries. Their constituency is smaller, however, more select, and usually has a higher degree of literary taste. In building, they will usually need rather more of the home or club atmosphere than other classes of libraries, and much less supervision. Here, for instance, the alcove and the window-nook might properly be used in reading rooms. The readers would be fewer, even in busy hours, and more homogeneous, so that a nervous man might pre-empt an alcove or a window seat and remain for hours comparatively undisturbed by either attendants or by other readers. Such societies will rarely build until they have a stable membership, many books and an accomplished librarian. From him the architect can learn the characteristics and habits of the members, and can begin planning by studying the features that will please them. As to the shelving of books, the administration and delivery, their problems will be much like other libraries, with perhaps more open access, especially to the new books for circulation.
The old-fashioned Mercantile Library, of which some survive in vigor, is similar in support, but more democratic in membership, and ought to be treated architecturally more like a public library, without children’s rooms or such social science features.
Institutional. Under this group I would include the libraries of endowed or charitable societies, such as Young Men’s Christian Associations.
If these are wealthy enough, they might have separate buildings or wings or stories for library use. Usually, however, they can only afford to set aside rooms or suites in buildings largely devoted to other purposes,—offices, class rooms, lectures, gymnasium. In such case, the library should be carefully planned to give it the best frontage and light.
Where there can be ample, and if possible separate elevator service, the upper floors, with some light through the roof, would probably offer the best opportunities. Rooms elsewhere in the building would give club facilities, so that feature of proprietary libraries might be omitted. The usual storage for books and good reference and light-reading-room facilities should be provided. If teaching is prominent in the plan of the institution, something like seminar rooms in colleges might be planned near the library, and private rooms for teachers and advanced students.
The administration of the library would probably be separate from that of other departments. The library might then be shut off from the rest of the building by sound-proof partitions, opening from a main corridor or from stairs and elevator, so as to be quiet and complete in itself.
Professional
This group might be sub-divided into scientific, medical, theological, law, and special or business; each requiring individual treatment and the advice of a librarian of mature experience in just that specialty. Here again the library will often be housed only in a room or a suite of rooms, to which should be assigned the best possible situation in the building, bearing in mind quiet, light and easy access. The users will be so select and responsible that they can be allowed full access to the shelves. Their use will be like that of professors or graduate students in a university. Wall shelving around rooms in which there are tables for readers; or where many books have to be assembled in one room, shallow alcoves and wall shelving opposite good light with tables near the windows; would be suitable arrangements for such rooms, with a minimum of service and supervision, and of florid ornamentation. Where a separate building is possible, other features might be added. Then, of course, general considerations would apply as to storage of books, administration and accommodation of readers.
Scientific. These would probably be libraries of separate or affiliated societies, in a building with club features; really specialized club libraries, for members only. They would be reference libraries almost entirely, without much circulation. Alcoves and wall shelving would be appropriate, with tables and racks for professional periodicals, and facilities for writing, without much probability of a great rush at any one time.
Medical. These would have much the same use as scientific, much the same quarters, much the same treatment. They would generally be larger, often with separate buildings. Special thought would have to be given to periodicals, the current numbers and back sets of which form a large proportion of the literature of this profession.
There were only thirty medical libraries listed in the government report of 1876, and very few of these appeared to have separate buildings. It would seem appropriate, in this class, to have a museum in the same building as the library, to illustrate the professional literature graphically.
Theological. The majority of such libraries would be attached to schools or colleges and partake of the treatment of departments in universities. There are a few large general theological libraries, however, with separate buildings. Quiet study, open access, slight supervision, inexpensive service, are their requisites. In theological schools it may be desirable to have class rooms near the library.
Separate rooms for quiet reading and writing would always be a convenience, if funds allow.
Where much attention is paid to the older literature of theology, a special provision of shelves for folios and quartos would be required.
Special and Business. As these libraries have recently formed a separate society or section of the American Library Association, they evidently have unique subjects to discuss, but few of them have attained the dignity of separate buildings.
They generally have to content themselves with a suite of rooms. Each one has its individual character, and can be ranked perhaps in the scientific and professional classes, except that any one library will probably have a more restricted group of readers, consisting of the partners and employees of the maintaining firm or establishment.
If the problem of providing such rooms comes to an architect, he should get instructions from the proprietor and librarian as to its special needs in shelving and other facilities.
In Chicago especially, where part of expense of such libraries is sometimes assumed by the Public Library, they cover a wide field of usefulness and assume proportionate importance.
Their number seems likely to increase rapidly as large firms differentiate, become wealthy, and can use technical libraries for the solution of manufacturing and commercial questions arising so frequently in every-day business that time and expense can be saved by having their own books handy instead of getting them from more public libraries.
Law. Literature of this class has such a peculiar use that law libraries need separate treatment and merit a special chapter. They are sometimes small, as county law libraries; or large—law-school, bar, city, state. They will usually be assigned to rooms in state capitols, city halls, or court houses, and trustees should exert early and strenuous efforts toward getting good and adequate locations assigned to them.
With good elevator service, it is certain that a whole top floor of the building, or the top floors of a roomy wing, will give the quietest, lightest, and most commodious quarters.
As both the study and practice of the law largely rest on precedents, the books which are most frequently cited have to be shelved close to ample table or desk facilities.
No matter how ample these are, every seat is apt to be filled during the busy hours of the day.
Lawyers like to look up, pick out, and themselves take to their desks, the books they want to use, and therefore there should be open access to all the shelves.
Alcoves are proper here, but more for extending shelf room—really wide open-access floor cases—than for study, which is better at tables.
Space enough is desirable on the main floor for all the books in common demand and for most of the readers.
The quarters recently obtained by the Social Law Library in the new extension of the court house in Boston, though not especially erected for the library, are very satisfactory. They comprise a long, lofty room, thoroughly lighted from high windows, with wall and alcove shelving opposite the light; with gallery possibilities for future growth; an opening to the main story of a stack; and a few rooms for hearings and quiet brief-making. The alcoves are wide enough for passing, but not for study at table. The long tables occupy that half of the length of the room which adjoins the outer wall and have ample diffused rather than direct daylight from windows high up in the wall.
One thing the Boston Social Law Library could not obtain space for, and which would be very desirable, is a sufficiency of private study rooms. In planning for the library, a circular with questions was sent to several large law libraries. One question was, “How many private rooms could you use?” All answers called for several rooms; one librarian would like to have fifty.
The tendency in all libraries is toward ample opportunities for quiet study, but in law libraries, authors, investigators, makers of briefs, especially need privacy and abstraction.
Government: Historical
U. S. Government. Libraries for the United States government are generally located in the national capitol. One has a separate building, the Library of Congress. The others are attached to the Departments and housed in the Department Buildings.
They may be treated much as law libraries are; indeed a large part of each of them constitutes a law library. Set aside for them well-lighted rooms with a good aspect, in a quiet part of the building. If the rooms are as lofty as the floors of the ordinary department building require, arrange for a two or three-story steel stack. There will be limited service to be provided for, limited circulation, and a rather limited and well-defined storage.
A special problem may soon come, in the form of legislation for a Supreme Court building, which must certainly provide for the consultation library of the Supreme Court, and perhaps for a great part of the Congressional Law Library. In the first instance, the collocation of court room, consultation room, judges’ private apartments, and library, will have to be carefully studied. If the main law library is to come to the new building, it will preponderate architecturally, with the necessary reading and study rooms for the bar. Strong common sense, and able library and juridical advice, will be required to avoid smothering the very definite uses of such a building in architectural embellishments.
State. Each state in the American Union has at least one “state library” at the capital, usually in the capitol, maintained at public charge primarily for the use of state officers, legislators and courts. Latterly they have become also central reference libraries for schools, colleges and citizens throughout the state, and traveling library centers, requiring special facilities for these services. They also require storage for public documents—very near dead literature, fit for close and perhaps dark storage. The growth of state libraries is phenomenal, largely from exchange of documents with other states and the United States, an immense and rapidly increasing literature (quadrupling every twenty-five years) which must be shelved in some form.
“There must be a division of a state library into law, documents, and miscellaneous, with a separate building for law and documents.... I am inclined to see the ideal state library as a great warehouse building. I want a dignified, simple, fireproof building; with heat, light, ventilation, conveniences for work, the very best that can be made, and without a dollar for elaborate display.”—Johnson Brigham, State librarian of Iowa.[36]
In building new state capitols, and in replacing old ones, there is considerable work ahead. In such an impressive and dignified building as the people want, the real needs of departments of the government, especially of the library, get scant consideration. To the library is often assigned some part of a prominent wing whose features, height of stories, size and arrangement of windows, style of shelving and furniture, are largely governed by supposed exigencies of the exterior, developed before the interior has been planned. It will require superhuman effort on the part of librarian to get model library quarters into such environment, but tact, early work, and persistence can often ameliorate conditions. Galleries and alcoves you will probably have to accept and do the best you can with, but it is open to some daring architect to build a stack in full sight, occupying the back half of the inevitable high room, with stack windows on the outside, giving an organ tone to the façade, and an open stack front within to give a similar tone to the interior.
Separate Library Buildings. Large states have already begun to give separate buildings to their general or at least to their law libraries (see [Law]). Such a segregation is to be commended, if space and money can be afforded, for here the library problems can be treated without prejudice, unhampered by traditions of American State Capitol Architecture.
“I am sure I would never put the State Library in the Capitol. The number of books the state legislature and officers use is very limited.”—Dewey.[37]
Simple construction, appropriate fenestration, interior planning beforehand with definite purposes, disregard of outside flights of steps and porticos, compression of inside passages to a minimum, quiet and restful shape and coloring, may yet produce buildings both useful and beautiful, which people of taste will come thousands of miles to see. Here is a fertile field for state librarians, state commissions, and talented architects.
Historical. Though not always on the same grounds as the state library, most such libraries are situated at the capitol, and have similar characteristics. They ought surely to have dignity and nobility of style, as they have in subject. They are entirely reference libraries, and should have preponderant accommodations for students and investigators, but in proportion to their size they have needs as to storage of books and for readers, very like those of other reference libraries. So far as they include antiquities, they need museum rooms and corridors in their buildings, usually assembly and lecture rooms, and always large fireproof safe rooms or vaults.
See full floor plans of the Wisconsin State Historical Society Building.—Adams.[38]
Genealogical and Antiquarian. So far as libraries are called distinctly antiquarian rather than historical, the museum function increases. Antiquities, even strictly literary, require different treatment from books. Glass doors for larger wall cases, glass cases for manuscripts and incunabula, merit wider corridors and rooms of different proportions, with different lighting. There must be more screens and free wall room for maps, engravings and pictures. There must be different service and supervision.
Genealogy has become such a favorite fad, and has so many societies which foster it, that separate space, perhaps separate buildings, will have to be provided for it. The features of such buildings, however, need have no marked distinction from historical and antiquarian libraries.
Educational
The library needs of all these educational institutions are similar. It has been said that there are three classes to be considered,—professors, graduate or advanced students, and undergraduates.
The ordinary youthful students do not get much time for general reading and do not need unrestricted access to all the shelves. If they can get at general and special reference books, their own text-books, and the books recommended by their instructors, it is all they want.
The professors and teachers, however, and to a certain extent advanced students, may wish to browse anywhere, and can be trusted to go anywhere. They want facilities for examining and selecting books in the stacks, they want quiet rooms to take books to (perhaps several books) where they can read, copy and write.
The professors want department and “seminar” rooms, shelved sometimes for permanent sub-libraries of their own technical books, always for books of present use in their daily classes. They also like to have individual rooms for study, and for their records.
The relation of these rooms to the general library is the peculiar and pressing problem of scholastic library building. Dr. Canfield said that the question, shall departmental libraries be included in the building of the general library? has not two sides, but a dozen.
School Libraries. These should not perhaps be treated here, as they rarely, perhaps never, have separate buildings. But as schools rise in grade, or are grouped in large buildings, their libraries may attain size and individual character, and the rooms assigned to them need careful planning. Good light first, with cheerful aspect; an accessible central position; wall shelving, combined perhaps with shallow alcoves opposite windows; spaces and tables for teachers and for scholars of different grades; a central space for general reference books, an attendant, and what passing to and fro is necessary; as good artificial light as the classrooms,—these would seem obvious desiderata.
College. Colleges and universities vary little except in size, and perhaps in the proportion advanced investigation and large departments bear to prescribed undergraduate study.
Rather open stacks, with carrels, would be preferable in a college; a good general reading room, or a suite of rooms slightly differentiated; nooks and private desks, with a private room or rooms for professors; wall shelving in professors’, class or seminar rooms, with shallow alcoves or floor cases at end of rooms for possibilities of enlargement.
Simple, central, inexpensive administration, with tubes or telephones to different rooms and departments; a central position in the college group or building, ample provision for growth, as gifts come in—these points suggest themselves.
At the St. Louis Conference in 1889, a suggestion was made that inasmuch as the library is the heart of a university, it should be given a central position from which the other buildings should radiate.[39]
University. Many universities are so large that most of their problems have been suggested in the chapter on Very Large Libraries.
Here the question of seminar or department libraries becomes acute. In some respects it is analogous to that of branches to a public library, but it is far more complicated.
How many departments are to be provided for; how far can they be served from the main library; if they are to have separate libraries, how large should these be; do they need permanent libraries, or only books sent from time to time; how far shall they duplicate the contents of the central library; how far shall they have department librarians under control of the general librarian? All these questions affect the planning of buildings.
Law and medicine generally have separate buildings and separate administration. As to other departments, systems vary in universities. Indeed, no two seem to have the same system. The one adopted at Brown is simple, inexpensive, efficient. This assigns all the departments to a separate building, not far from the central library, and connected with it by telephone, tunnel, and mechanical carrier. This building has a central room for one attendant. Round him are grouped the reference books needed by all departments, and any professor, through him, can call books at will from the delivery desk at the main library. In this arrangement each department can have its own shelving, and its head can have an adjoining private room, with convenient storage for his own books and papers.
A system, some variety of which seems common, provides wings or galleries on various floors for the seminar rooms, more or less conveniently served from the main library.
Other universities have their departments dotted around the grounds, wherever they happen to have been placed from time to time, without apparent reference to the library, and served from it only by messenger.
Others have seminar rooms built in various forms near the library building, with bridges or arcades between, by which they have access to their own branch of literature, stored in an adjacent part of the library.
Others again have rooms fitted more or less cleverly into the body or corners of a general stack. A very convenient location would be a special seminar story over the stack, with both top and side light, which would allow a large number of rooms of any required sizes.
Without the seminar complication, Mr. Patton[40] is perhaps right in saying that the college library presents a simpler problem than the public library, for it has less circulation, and no children to deal with; but with it, especially on a large scale, this is one of the most perplexing puzzles of library planning.
Mr. Patton also suggests[41] that the best location for a college library is one that does not require architectural façades on all sides, and that a slope backwards has advantages. The same may be said of many other kinds of libraries.
In a recent number of the Popular Science Monthly[42] it is suggested that a university might be built in a compact group, with a common façade, as beautiful as possible; offices and lecture rooms to be directly behind this show front; the library occupying a central position further back, flanked by the departments, all connected and all built on “the unit plan” for easy enlargement sideways, endways, up, or down.
In recent projects, there seems to be a tendency toward schemes for a college group, evolved evidently not from the use of the several buildings, but from desire for architectural harmony. Those interested in the library should strive to have it omitted from any such general scheme, and relegated to any modest position in the background, where its details could be worked out without any such exterior bias.
The position of the general reading room is another major problem. In a small college it can be put, as a single room or a suite, almost anywhere within easy reach, near the main entrance, and preferably on the main floor. In a large university a one-story ground floor room in the center of the building, just back of the main entrance, not too high (lest the roof cut off too much light from the lower windows of the wings opening on the courtyard), would seem to be a good location.
Administration rooms, as in other libraries, should be central, well lighted, suitably collocated, and quiet. The delivery desk would better be separate from the reading room, unless it could be combined with the service desk in that room, and so placed toward the entrance end or side as not to let the stir and noise disturb readers.
Where to put the catalog cases adjoining both departments, with good light, is usually another puzzle inviting study.
Public Libraries
“For the American people the library of the future is unquestionably the free public library, established with private or public funds, and maintained wholly or in part at public expense under municipal control.”—Fletcher.[43]
“The ‘public library’ is established by state laws, supported by local taxation and voluntary gifts, and managed as a public trust. It is not a library simply for scholars, but for the whole community, the mechanic, the laborer, the youth, for all who desire to read, whatever be their rank or condition in life.”—William F. Poole.[44]
“The library of the immediate future for the American people is unquestionably the free public library, brought under municipal ownership and control and treated as part of the educational system.”—Dana, L. P.[45]
The building of the public library must recognize and serve these noble aims. The idea of public libraries is as old as Rome; their aims are essentially modern in their democracy.
“Modern ideas of the functions of a public library are,—lending books for home use; free access to the shelves; cheerful and homelike surroundings; rooms for children; co-operation with schools; long hours of opening; the extension of branch-library systems and traveling libraries; lectures and exhibits; the thousand and one activities that distinguish the modern library from its more passive predecessor.”—Bostwick.[46]
The impulse of these ideas should be practically felt in the planning of buildings. Precedents, models, the fetters of architectural style, must be thrown aside where they impede or hamper progress. Architecture must march side by side with Library Science, should even lead it and show it the most effective ways to work out the new idea.
In the first place, “cheerful and homelike surroundings” do not accord with lofty rooms, vast halls, and heavy architecture; and dazzling decoration must not repel the man in a working suit.
Popular features should not entirely banish books and accommodations for students. “Every public library should be a library of study. Besides professional scholars and teachers, even authors or editors among residents, there are students in the higher schools, university extension students, members of literary clubs, cultivated college graduates, lawyers, clergymen, who should find congenial facilities in a building meant for the whole community.”—Fletcher.[47]
On the other hand, it would be a shame to let such serious reading and literature crowd out any popular or educational features, or take an undue share of the construction or maintenance funds.
What should be especially planned for, is inviting and cozy provision for the ambitious young men or women who want to educate themselves either by general reading, or by the special literature of their occupation in life; and for the tired women whether housekeepers, workers or idlers, who can find in books or magazines or papers relaxation and recreation from their home burdens.
Children’s rooms, now always a principal feature to be planned, will have a separate chapter.
Branch. The branch library, as distinguished from distributing or delivery stations, has its own building, and deserves as careful study as the main library in a small city. Branches vary from merely local stations relying on main libraries for most of the administrative work, to branches practically independent. The problem of branch libraries has come into prominence recently, especially since Carnegie has made so many gifts in this direction. Most of them fall into the “small” grade, but in large cities many rise to the “moderate” and even “medium” figures. One branch library in Philadelphia, with special endowment, cost $800,000, but that is very exceptional.
The first question is site. Good authorities say that there ought to be branches about a mile apart; one, that is, within half a mile’s walk of any family. Crunden says,[48] “The ideal would be to have a branch library as often as we have a public school.” The average constituency of branches in Great Britain is said to be 60,000. In this country it has been suggested that there ought to be one for every 40,000 dense population, or one to 25,000 in opener districts. But there can be no invariable rule. Circumstances differ as well as available funds.
Chas. W. Sutton of Manchester, in an article on branch libraries,[49] summarizes:—
“There should be a lending library for every 40,000 in close populations, 25,000 or 30,000 in scattered communities.
“Placed on car lines in the thick of the population.
“Not more than a mile apart.
“Never more than 15,000 volumes in stock.
“A majority consider 10,000 volumes a great sufficiency even in a large city branch.[50]
“No library with less income than $7,500 should try branches. It would be cheaper to pay borrowers’ carfares to and from the main library.”
See Bostwick, “Branches and Stations.”[51]
A good general rule is to watch neighborhoods, especially outlying districts, and notice where schools or fire department buildings are demanded, and where little groups of local stores spring up. These groups usually form in the most accessible localities in new districts. It has been said that branches in residence quarters are more used than those in business centers. This is undoubtedly true of business sections in large cities, but, nevertheless, even locations in residence quarters should be chosen for ready access, and ready access with local demands has already selected such locations for stores in smaller places. A lot near a schoolhouse is always good: it is handy for the children.
Like other small libraries, branches have to be planned for easy supervision and economical service, hence, all departments should be on one floor, with high basement, if possible, for janitor, heating, toilet, and possible social service functions, like classes and lectures. Provide for delivery, a few quick-reference books, and a limited stock of books to be lent.
The number of books to be shelved will vary with the constituency, from 2,000 to 15,000 volumes—the fewer the better. When once settled, no growth need be provided for, as disused books can be sent back to the central library from time to time, to make place for new books. Nor will administration grow largely. But growth in the parts allotted to different kinds of reading, to children, and to social service functions must be provided for, inside the building preferably.
Corners, or railed-off parts of rooms, will separate periodicals and other light reading from children, reference books and delivery desk. Readers should be able to choose books and help themselves by absolutely open access, to minimize cost of service. Very little provision need be made for serious readers, who can be referred to the central library. If any cataloguing is to be done at the branch, a librarian’s room must be provided. If not, and there is only one attendant, an enclosed delivery desk is enough, and the space usually taken up by a librarian’s room can be given to books or readers.
The conditions in city branches will be very similar to those in small towns, with perhaps less of the neighborhood club, and more of the social service idea, without any problems of increased storage of books, and with more difficulties in foreseeing changes.
As to cost, a report to the city of New York recommended $5,000 for small branches, and up to $10,000 for large ones. But in Brooklyn and other cities, separate branches for sections as large as, and situated like, suburban towns, have cost as high as $150,000.
A very interesting case of establishing several branches at once may be found in a description of the Brooklyn plan.[52]
In New York city, to get more branches than could be afforded in buying expensive sites, and to get them where they were wanted, single buildings in the midst of blocks have been taken.
In England, many of the newer branches include “social center” functions, not only ladies’, boys’, ratepayers’, conversation, and attendants’ tea rooms, but even in one case a restaurant, which is expected “to provide a large share of the cost of maintenance.”
See Bindery, [p. 253].
See Bostwick, under Rooms for Classes, p. 325, prox.
Suburban. Suburban libraries differ on the one hand from country libraries in remote regions, and on the other from branches in cities. They are near enough for “team work” with the library system of the city in whose suburbs they lie, but they serve an independent community, often jealous of its privileges. They have not quite the problems of growth of the country library, because they can have an inter-library loan system with the city libraries, or can arrange to refer to them many inquirers and students. This possibility may limit the size and expense of their buildings, and the necessity of providing for unlimited growth.
Exceptional Cases
Middle of Blocks. Occasionally, as with the present Cincinnati Public Library, and with the New York City branch libraries, circumstances require the location of the building in a block. Of course this necessity is a handicap. The problem of giving all the departments good positions and full light is difficult when there is space all round the four walls, but when both side walls are blank, ingenuity is required in providing all the requisites for every department. Natural light everywhere is impossible, and artificial light must be largely relied on. Whatever features (like closets and stairs where there are no books to be picked out or read) can be assigned to the middle or waist of each floor, will leave more chance for front and rear use of clear daylight. The top floor can be all utilized with top light. A light well from the center of the roof will mitigate the dimness of illumination on staircases and entries. The experience of New York is valuable for such problems, and would doubtless be freely available. But it is a good rule to avoid such locations, if possible.
Top Floors. Exigencies of income may require a Board to rent part of their building, as in the case of many of the “Mercantile” libraries which still survive. While the St. Louis Public was a school-board library, it had this experience. In these days of roomy and rapid elevators, such a necessity is not so bad as it seems, especially if one or two rooms in a public library could be left on the ground floor. At the top there is usually good air, comparative quiet, coolness, and light, even in smoky cities. Modern methods of construction carry great weights safely, and it is possible to plan service and reading rooms on the top floor with one or two-story stacks beneath, giving fine accommodations with good business suites earning income, on floors beneath. Separate elevators for business and for library purposes are, however, essential.
Museums or Art Galleries in Same Building. There is so rarely enough money available to allow as much room as the library wants, and there is usually so much friction in operating more than one institution under one roof, that while there is general belief in the value of museums and galleries as public undertakings, there is great unanimity among American librarians that they are better apart. Few librarians with us have the training which would fit them to undertake the superintendence of such different departments, and fewer still would like to be superintended by a musician or scientist. Yet, if together in one building, there should be one superior officer for all, even if he be called only custodian. The difficulties of planning a building to provide properly and amply for more than one of these three functions are just three times the puzzle of planning for one. Where a city wants to try it, or a donor insists on it, it is far better to plan a group of three buildings on one large lot, with such connection by arcades as would give a pleasing architectural bond, without shutting out any light, at least from the library.
Those who are interested in such combinations are referred to the English library books and magazines, passim. The union of libraries and museums in England, indeed, is so common as to be recognized in the Library Acts. If art or other exhibitions are a feature of the library management, they can be provided for as suggested under the head of exhibitions elsewhere.
Alterations and Enlargements. Often existing residences or halls are presented for library use. The proverb, “Never look a gift-horse in the mouth,” does not apply in such cases. The gift building ought to be examined all over by experts—an expert librarian and an architect, if possible—before it is accepted. It will often be found to cost more for alteration, before the old building can be quite suited to library purposes, than a plain but satisfactory new building would cost. Certainly it is unwise to hamper library efficiency out of a sentimental regard for a donor, alive or dead.
If the building is found susceptible of inexpensive alterations, which would render it entirely suitable for such work as the library wants to do, it will evidently be unwise to trust the task to an architect, inexperienced in library alterations, or even to the advice of an immature librarian. Here, if ever, is there need, from the side of economy as well as the side of utility, of a wise library expert, for fear of making a botch.
So in making alterations in an old library building which requires enlargement, do not accept the hasty suggestions of even the most ingenious and confident trustee, or the prentice plans of a callow librarian or a young architect. Get the best plan you can secure from the best authorities. The best will be none too good for you. Justice to your successors and to the next generation requires the utmost care in piece work.
See an article by Miss Annie B. Jackson,[53] on items and expense of alterations at North Adams, Mass. The repairs there proved to outrun the estimate.
When you get your tentative plans and your rough estimates, get also a rough estimate for a new building. You will often be surprised to find how near the cost of alterations will come to that of building. If it turns out so, better wait and get your ideal rather than patch up a makeshift.
But if, after deliberation, you vote to alter, there is one wise end to aim at, that is, to spend as small a part of your available funds for mere alteration, and as large a part for features which could be utilized later for a permanent building, as may be possible. Witness, for instance, the recent experience of the Salem Public Library.[54] They had pressing need of more room, but could use only $70,000 for changes, not enough for such a new building as they wanted, or could afford while they had a perfectly sound old residence to use. But by ingenious planning, they have been able to get a stack with an administration head house, to which they can add later a main building when they need further enlargement. They have spent a minimum in temporary changes on their old dwelling-house, and have besides retained enough money to build a branch library.
Altering New Buildings. It is not only old buildings that need altering. Too frequently a good librarian, alive to progress, and faced with the problems of growth, finds himself promoted to a beautiful building of such recent erection as to be financially exhausted, and indisposed to spend money in necessary additions or alterations. The question confronts him, how get more room with the least cost?
In this fix, he will first look inside and see where he can house more books, more readers, more attendants. Here shortcomings of the architect may perhaps afford him at least temporary relief. The most likely fault he finds will be wasted space, perpendicularly or laterally. Two faults are bad; they cannot even be converted into virtues. These are domes and ornamental staircases. Domes, to be sure, can be circled with galleries to which unused books can be sent—a very brief palliative. And elevators or lifts may be cut into stairs. But such makeshifts will not serve.
More opportunities may be discovered in spacious vestibules, in wide corridors, in lofty stories. The vestibules and corridors can be narrowed to simply useful width, and their exuberance partitioned off into rooms. Mezzanine floors can also utilize waste upper spaces.
If money cannot be found for partitions and floors, for iron and wood and paint, I see a good use for sliding cases, in the form Professor Little has at Bowdoin—just two or more stories of this contrivance, set out in the corner or at the side or in the middle of any useless stretch of floor.
Tables and chairs can invite an overflow of readers in any space not needed for passage; temporary wooden shelving can be set against any corridor wall; administration desks can be protruded into any architectural waste. When you go to Washington, see what Mr. Bowerman has done at the Public Library there.
B.
PRINCIPLES
This Book groups together rather loosely, important considerations which as said at the bottom of [page 90] ought to be reiterated and hammered into the consciousness of all concerned.