“In rooms for magazine reading, there should be more room for chairs than tables.”—Champneys.[323] This seems good advice, unless the periodicals are to be laid loose on the tables.
It is often the custom to put reviews and other serious magazines in the reading room, leaving all the popular or recreative serials in the room for light reading.
There are frequent articles in English library journals about arrangement of magazines, but I find nothing among them which seems to improve on methods generally understood here. See Duff-Brown.[324]
“A really effective system, of displaying periodicals is about as difficult to find as a first folio Shakespeare.”—Burgoyne.[325]
The few newspapers taken are generally mounted on sticks and hung from racks, though I have seen them left loose on tables.
Newspaper Room
In English libraries this department seems prominent in all buildings, large and small. “The English newsroom is generally the largest and most convenient room in the building.” In America, a few newspapers are kept in the light-reading room, but only large public libraries have separate rooms for newspapers. Where a considerable collection is kept, a large room will be required, with single sloping desks against the walls or double desks on the floor, with or without stools; or sometimes the papers are hung on the hooks of racks, and used at tables (with chairs) close by.
The newspaper room may be put in the basement with a separate entrance, as its use and supervision are generally separate from other uses of the library.