Elevators. These are not at all needed in small libraries, and their use should be postponed as long as possible as a library grows larger, not only on account of initial cost, space required, and danger of furnishing upward drafts in case of fire, but because of the treble cost of running—power, manning and tinkering. They are one of the necessary nuisances of large buildings.
When used, they may be installed in dark inside corners, and should so accommodate passage up and down that less space need be put into staircases. They should open outside rather than inside rooms, even if special corridors have to be provided. The stir of operation, entrance and exit is very disturbing for staff as well as for readers.
The necessity of installing an elevator marks a debatable and epochal point in the development of a library. Indeed I have thought of classifying buildings,—those which can get along without elevators; and those that must have them. Here comes a great leap in the expense of operation.
The number of elevators in the building, their size, their position, the system of operating them, all have an immediate bearing on annual operating expenses, and in very large libraries need a vast amount of special study and conference.
Mechanical Carriers
Some jubilation has been expressed by librarians and architects over the conquest of space through the aid of invention, but space and time have not yet been entirely annihilated. Two hundred feet by carrier may be shorter than a hundred by foot, but it is still twice as far as a hundred feet by carrier, and in planning to use mechanical aids, it is still necessary to remember that a straight line is the shortest distance between two points.
For small packages and small libraries, tubes (pneumatic propulsion or exhaust) are the simplest contrivance for horizontal carriage, and they will serve many purposes in larger libraries.
In large buildings it is usually wise to provide some sort of machinery from remote parts of the stack to the delivery desk, and also direct to the reading-room floors; although the leading specialist on this subject, Bernard R. Green[221] of the Library of Congress, warns that they should only be adopted as a matter of necessity, for they require expenditure, space and complicated machinery. There are forms to be studied in most of the very large libraries, government, university and public. As every new library building will probably devise some decided improvement in tubes and carriers, I will not take space here to describe the different devices now in use, but will advise very careful study of every problem as it arises. Burgoyne[222] describes the Boston Public Library System.[223] The Library of Congress underground system which has been in continuous service satisfactorily since 1897, has also been very well described in The Library.[224]
It seems to me that the services I have seen are heavier, clumsier and slower than is necessary, and that something of the ingenuity that has been put into commercial cash-carrier systems might devise for libraries book-baskets, run on wires, which would serve all purposes for single volumes or small lots of books. Those now operating also suggest frequent stoppages for repairs. “Carriers that turn corners are apt to get out of order,” says Bostwick.[225]