In planning, the first thing is to calculate how many cards, drawers and cases are needed for the number of books now in the library, and the annual increase probable, for at least ten years ahead; better twenty-five years, if there is wall or floor room which will be vacant that long. Then comes the very important decision, vitally affecting the size of the room, perhaps its location, and the disposition of the windows and lights; namely, where is the best possible location for the catalog, considering accessibility, supervision and help? Provision for growth can be lateral or up and down, or both. When the drawers get to be more than three or four in a tier, some provision must be made in front of or beside them for a ledge or narrow table on which they can be laid when taken out for inspection. In small libraries the combined catalog case and atlas rack can be built so that the table will form a ledge on all sides, for this use, without other provision.
Good location and light for the public catalog make one test of the excellence of your plan.
Bulletin Boards
One thing often forgotten in planning is to leave available wall space where necessary bulletins can be hung and easily read,—a practical detail not always seen by the artistic eye. Everyone has seen dome and rotunda libraries, all columns and no wall.
In planning, however, it is not hard to assign opportunities in spaces sufficiently well lighted, but of no use otherwise, for hanging bulletin boards, or so treating walls as to serve that purpose without special boards. Lobbies, vestibules, corridors, stairways, spacious delivery rooms, even railings outside, invite such use. In England, want-lists are cut out from the daily papers, mounted on boards, and thus hung outside the library for inspection by the unemployed.
Places for bulletins should also consider—they do not always—near-sighted people, and the undersized. Even in such unprosaic matters, careful planning in every phase can promote the usefulness of the library. I remember being shown about a new dome library in the west, where the librarian turned in distress and asked, “Do tell me where I can put up my bulletins or lists.” The only thing I could suggest was that she should get her architect to design a Parisian kiosk, to be set in the centre of the useless floor space, under the wasted heights of the dome; and use the exterior of the kiosk for bulletins, the interior for the brooms, for which no closet had been provided.
Miss Marvin[398] suggests spaces over radiators, shelves, periodical cases, and book bins. An ordinary screen, like those used in bar-rooms in any “wide-open” town, placed in the center of vestibule or hall would offer two sides for lists and bulletins posted at any convenient height.