The Worst Extravagances
The very worst possible waste in building a library is doubtless unduly expensive material and unnecessary ornament. These items often mount up into tens and even hundreds of thousands. They are worse than mere waste, they are positive detriments.
The next worst is perhaps architectural competitions, which are spoken of at length elsewhere.[65] They are sure to cost a deal: payment for an advisory architect, payment of prizes, payment of the jury. Here again there is more than waste, there is delay, a false start, deliberate care to put exterior before interior.
The third common extravagance is parsimony in experts’ fees. Champneys[66] in speaking of architects’ errors, says that “to this fact must be attributed the suggestion that librarians should dispense with the services of architects, and design their buildings for themselves.” This suggestion may have been made in England, but never in America, even in acute periods of despair over the trend of building. No American librarian, no building committee, would think of dispensing with an architect, though they might try to economize by getting a cheap one.
But it is just as wasteful to cheapen your library adviser as your architect. Because it has a librarian already, or because the architect chosen is willing to tackle the job without expert advice (perhaps more readily because he resents advice), or because it is inclined to contemn and resent advice itself, the committee often commits willful extravagance at the outset, saving at the spigot to waste at the bung, by going poorly equipped into a serious task.