These rooms, in about the order of need, as libraries grow, are,—

These rooms, except Information, do not demand ground-floor space, but can be assigned to upper floors. In a large library, they will be accessible by elevators anywhere; in a two-story library, or even in one of three stories with easy flights of stairs, the fewer readers who want to use them may be asked to climb rather than the larger throngs of general readers or borrowers of books.

Local Literature. I take up this first, because even a very small library may begin a collection, if only part of a shelf can be given to it. “In a small place,” says Bostwick,[341] “the library may go as far in such directions as its resources warrant, and even without financial ability, it may stimulate sufficient interest to secure volunteer helpers.” If you have or can get to look at Duff-Brown,[342] see his specification of the books, etc., a library may include in a “local collection.” Everything local in the way of printed matter, is his summary. See a series of articles in The Library Asso. Rec., Vol. 7, 1905, pp. 1 to 30, and Vol. 13, p. 268. This is an English example well worth following.

A local collection may include, besides books and pamphlets, maps, prints, even pictures, for which hanging space will be needed on the walls. Indeed, if a local antiquarian society can be drawn in as assistant handlers and curators, such a collection may assume a museum phase, and may need low bookcases for books, with ledges above for models and busts, cupboards for pamphlets and small objects, even glass cases for relics. It should have floor space for visitors before all these cases, and a large table and chairs for committee meetings. It is one of the rooms which might be shared by the trustees where accommodations are restricted. There is ample opportunity for special planning in such a room, in accordance with the policies of the administration of the library.

Study Rooms. Here again the smallest libraries cannot spare special facilities. All users must share the limited space available. But when they get beyond the one-room or one-floor stage, some corners or intervals between other departments, or ends of corridors, or mezzanine rooms, might be found for private rooms, to be used for individuals, either alone or with one scribe or typewriter. Even in small towns, there are cultivated citizens, or professional people, or teachers, or reporters, even authors, who wish to use books, and prepare manuscripts alone, and can safely be trusted to do so without supervision. How great a service such rooms might do in any American community, I do not think is generally recognized.

“It is the library alone that can furnish inventors, investigators, and students of all kinds the opportunity to forestall wasteful effort.”—Bostwick.[343]

For individuals, such rooms can be small, and low, of almost any form, simply furnished with one small table and two chairs, with shelves at one side or end for a few books, and one window, not necessarily large, but giving good light on the table.

“A large room with stalls, or a series of small rooms with shelves, for students making protracted investigations and needing to keep books several days.”—Winsor.[344]