Protection from Enemies
Blades in his “Enemies of Books” enumerates Fire, Water, Gas, Heat, Dust, Neglect, Bookworms, Mice and other vermin [to which he might have added book thieves, extra illustrators, mutilators and defacers].
Against the latter group, supervision is a deterrent.
Gas is vanishing before the electric light.
Neglect we cannot allow, or plead guilty to.
Bookworms and vermin have not apparently worried our libraries as much as those of the old world. They can hardly be guarded against in building, except as we guard against moisture and filth.
Fire is a great danger in our climate. There is some quality in the atmosphere—some latent condition akin to electricity, which feeds flames. We have concluded that limits of expense and considerations of convenience render it impossible to make our buildings, or any part of them, except the vault for valuables, absolutely fireproof.
In view of the fact that books will always remain combustible, and sensitive to injury from smoke and water, it is now generally conceded that all we need aim at is isolation, slow combustion through “warehouse-construction,” hollow walls, iron or steel shelving, and the like.
Outside iron shutters are considered clumsy, and not so good protection as distance from other buildings. Inside iron doors are frequently neglected, and tend to curl up in hot flames. Local fire regulations sometimes require protected doors through partitions—for which slow-burning wood, tinned, is preferred. These are often interposed between the stack and the rest of the building. The stack can be made more fireproof than the rest, without much extra expense. Its greatest danger, shared with other parts, is from crossed electric wires. Against these, careful installation by conscientious electrical experts is the chief protection.
Thoroughly fireproofing the boiler-rooms, ash-pit and waste-paper bin is a protection any building can have, and in many cases these can all be set outside. Heating-pipes can be kept from contact with woodwork or books, and can be protected with asbestos or otherwise.
Material is a great factor of danger or safety. Wood, unless treated chemically, is more dangerous than iron or stone, but inside iron needs protection from flame, lest it yield when most needed. In the San Francisco fire, brick and terra cotta withstood heat better than marble, granite, sandstone, or limestone.[218]
The great use now made of concrete for floors, ceilings, partitions, and walls renders modern buildings safer from fire, and is to be commended especially in libraries.
The roof is vulnerable and should be of non-inflammable material, fireproofed if possible. Sparks blown from neighboring conflagrations, lighting on an unguarded public building, give the greatest outside danger. Tar roofs are said to be non-combustible, when properly gravelled, but do not be too sure of them. Tile, slate, asbestos-shingles should insure you.
Elevators. These and lifts furnish in their shafts dangerous draft-flues for fires starting below. If there is any way to provide doors and trap-doors easily managed, to shut off every floor, one great danger of spread of fire is removed.
Glass. As outside shutters are objectionable, tough wire-glass, which does not break easily from heat, will furnish a measurable protection from outside fire, without materially diminishing light. Indeed it may transmit or reflect light better than large panes of plate glass, which shatter too easily.
Fire-buckets on every floor, prescribed in many insurance regulations, are not so necessary when there are water-taps handy everywhere, as recommended above. Fire extinguishers, however, are not superfluous.
Standpipes. In large buildings the local fire department can aid the architect by suggesting the most effective location for service pipes to command every corner of every room and passage most effectively and economically.
Lightning. Lightning rods, once deemed so essential, do not seem popular now, but metal standpipes, and steel stacks, well-grounded, would certainly serve to carry lightning down to the depth of permanent moisture. I cannot hear that lightning has ever found stacks attractive.
Water. Leaks are bad for books, and fussy for folks. Roofs and cellars may let in moisture, and a library needs tightness in both. Unless it is well constructed and tested at the outset, the leaks, the seepage of a building are hard to find and to stop. No care and thought should be spared concerning this insidious enemy, from choosing the site to flashing the roof-tree.
Since drafting this chapter, I am reminded by an article in Vol. I of the “Library Association Record,”[219] of certain bookworms or grubs I have found in old books from the damp shores of our gulf states. Mr. Widman of St. Charles College is quoted as saying, “We see the time when we shall have to burn part of our books to save the other part.” But I find no suggestion as to any provisions in building which would check such pests. Rigid exclusion of moisture from foundations and walls would probably be the only palliative.
I have noticed cloth bindings of books, especially public documents from gulf states, badly eaten by roaches.
William R. Reinick, Chief of Documents in the Philadelphia Free Library, has printed results of experiments as to insects that destroy books, in Scientific American Supplements of Dec. 24, 1910, and May 11, 1912. He says:—
“It has been stated that more books have been destroyed by small forms of life than by fire and water combined.”
“Heat, dampness, and dirt deposited in handling books, develop worms, etc.”
“Libraries keep many books in dark places, badly ventilated. Darkness, damp air, and leaving books long undisturbed, favor propagation of small forms of life.”
“Light and cleanliness are the two most important factors in preventing the ravages of insects and also of fungi which grow upon and in books in a damp, warm atmosphere.”
While few libraries in our northern states have suffered from book worms and the like, will it not be well to experiment before entrusting rare books to sliding cases, or any books to dark central or especially underground stacks?
Stacks. There is one danger in many stacks. A wide space is left between “deck” and shelves on each edge. The danger of dropping small articles like pencils and pads is elsewhere spoken of, but do not such unnecessary wide spaces increase the danger of fire from below and leaks from above?