In 1876 an impetus was given to library science, including building, by the government report of that year on libraries, and also by the formation of the American Library Association. The annual meetings of the Association, its discussions, the studies and reports of its committees, the formation and activity of state, city, and other local library associations, the establishment of library schools, have all tended to build up a consensus of opinion on important topics which has been recorded in the library journals, and has slowly but surely impressed itself on architects, on the public, and, not least of all, upon building committees.
A special impetus toward union among librarians was the controversy which arose over the building of the second Boston Public Library. The importation of its exterior design from Paris, and the attempt to build up an interior for it without any consultation with librarians either local or national, seemed such a marked snub to the profession just becoming conscious of power and unity, that it aroused renewed attention to the proper planning of library buildings. A trustee of the library having stated in public that “it was no use to consult librarians, for no two of them agreed on any point,” the American Library Association endorsed unanimously at its next conference the paper on “Points of Agreement on Library Architecture,” which has since been the accepted basis of all satisfactory plans. A series of nine letters to the Boston Herald, criticizing the building and the library management (republished in 17 L. J.), vindicated the library side of the controversy and brought about a change of management. And yet this façade of the library Ste. Geneviève in Paris has been repeated “with monotonous poverty of invention,” says an architect, in the mistaken belief that a building once labeled a library is a praiseworthy model to be copied.
Another spur to library building during these last years has been the Carnegie gifts. Their number and wide range, furnishing at the same time an incentive and a climax to both private beneficence and public liberality, finally convinced architects that in library buildings of all sizes and various purposes they had a theme worthy of their best work and highest genius. Mr. Carnegie’s first Public Free Library was founded in 1889, less than quarter of a century ago. Up to March, 1911, he had given funds for 2062 public and 115 college libraries.
Forecasting the Years
This rapid sketch has gleaned the records to show how the housing of libraries has grown through centuries toward a rapid development in our own age.
The Present. In looking back through the last sixty years, indeed through the last quarter-century, we contrast twenty-five years ago with the present time. We cannot fail to be satisfied with the advance in rational building. We know better what we want; we are called more into consultation with our trustees as to what is wanted; our opinions are listened to with respect by the architects. If every building is not as perfect as we could wish, how much larger is the proportion of serviceable libraries; how much smaller is the number of stately failures? Turn over the plans in Koch’s portfolio of Carnegie Libraries. See how much better is the average interior, how much more satisfactory the fenestration and proportions of the average exterior. In the “Points of Agreement among Librarians,” adopted as our chart in 1891, it was stated that “very few library buildings erected during the previous ten years conformed to all, and some of them conformed to none, of these axiomatic requirements.” Could we not say now that nearly all library buildings erected since 1891 conformed to most and many to all of what have seemed to us the requisites of construction?
The Next Quarter Century. What has the future in store for us?
In the first place, a swarm of buildings. Private beneficence, already aroused and stimulated, will continue for at least another generation even after Carnegie shall pass on to his reward. Public opinion in a large part of our country has come to believe in the library as it believes in the schools. Small libraries will follow railway stations into all growing and ambitious towns. Communities now inert will awake and, as instruments for good, demand libraries to stand beside their churches. The buildings of today will soon burst their bounds in the flood of library progress, and require enlargement or replacement.