SPIRIT OF PLANNING
Every new library building should be thoroughly planned with a view to its class, scope, size, funds, site, environment, experience, and cost of administration. True economy begins with a good plan. Not only present cost but future annual costs depend on it.
The main thing in beginning to plan, even in the first consideration of building, is to set your ideal high. If your funds are not yet provided do not take it for granted that they will be meagre. Study the scope of your library, look hopefully into its future. What work should it do now; what growth should it get in the next twenty-five years? What size and area are needed to meet your utmost possibilities in that time? Consider first only the essentials—they will be costly enough. When you have made careful calculation of actual needs (and nothing else) ask your donor, town or institution for what would cover them. Do not at first include expensive material or ornament. If the body that is to pay requires elegance, calculate cost of this and present it as a separate question.
Set your ideal of utility high, and ask enough to cover it. If you cannot get it, then and not till then will be time to decide what to surrender.
If the amount to be spent is already fixed, still study ideals first. Can we get all the requisites for this library within that sum? If it is evidently impossible; if building thus would stifle usefulness or stunt growth, ask for more. But if you cannot get it, or if you think the appropriation can be made to cover the work, the ideal to aim at is to pack into the building ample accommodation for every function you will need to cover.
Above all, make these calculations ahead. When the sum is finally fixed, resolve to plan so carefully that the final cost will come within the appropriation. Like a note to pay, this obligation is peremptory.
“The main ideas are, compact stowing to save space, and short distances to save time.”—Winsor.[55]
This axiom written a generation ago would serve to head this chapter now. Also this, “In building, as in management, the wants of the great masses of the public must be kept constantly in view.”—Poole.[56]
“The evolution of a design is not such a simple matter that the finished idea can be produced in a short time, but it must depend on a gradual evolution, based upon a thorough study of the local conditions.”—Patton.[57]
“A building can be made both beautiful from the architect’s standpoint and useful from that of its occupant, by constant consultation between them, by comparison of views at every point, and by intelligent compromise whenever this is found to be necessary.”—Bostwick.[58]