Problem Always New
It is folly to try to copy except perhaps in a minimum grade library—in embryo or rudimentary form. Perhaps in a very small and remote community, without a trained librarian, with no experienced librarians near, and far from a library commission, it would be safe to ask a local builder or carpenter to duplicate some small building pictured in such a manual as I have suggested, by Miss Marvin and Mr. Eastman. But never except in the smallest grade.
Even among the libraries usually called small, there are differences of site, location, community, state of development, size, methods, aims, funds, prospects of growth, which will distinguish or should distinguish each new building from all other buildings. As soon as a library begins to have a character of its own—and this development comes early in America—its library problem merits and absolutely requires independent study. Every community, every institution, wants to have a library suited exactly to its characteristics, and the library should have a building suited exactly to its character.
“The problem presented to an architect by a library board is always essentially new.”—Mauran.[70]
“Special and local conditions place a new problem before the builder every time.”—O. Bluemner.[71]