“A building is a good thing; it makes the library mean more to the public. Build to save light and coal, build to save work in keeping neat and clean, build to allow for growth, build so that one person can control and do all the work.”—Ranck.[30]
“A plain one-story wooden building built on posts, with only one room, heated by a stove, lighted by oil lamps, very simply lined with wall shelving, furnished with the plainest of tables and chairs, will do at first.”[31]
“The public library in a small town is usually its only intellectual center.”—O. Bluemner.[32] And it may become its pleasantest social center.
The first development would be to a one-story, one-room building on foundations, but not with finished cellar or basement. Perhaps a fireplace could be added, with more and better furniture and shelving, so planned that different corners and separate divisions of shelving, still under control from a central desk, could begin the rudimentary divisions of a library; reference, light reading, children. Serious reading would have to be postponed, or pursued under difficulties.
The next stage would still be confined to one open main floor, to be under one central supervision, built on the trefoil plan, center and two wings, in three rooms, or rather three parts of one room, divided by cords, rails, glass partitions or low bookcases. To this could be added at the back another projection, to be used as the reference library, or for open shelves. “In the trefoil plan, the end wall of the book room at the back might well be all glass, with no windows at the sides. This would be very easy to extend.”—O. Bluemner.[33] Up to this time, no provision need be made for a private room for the librarian.
But about this stage it is time to think of a raised cellar or basement, which will about double the available floor space and begin to allow division into departments, the first increase of force being a janitor who can act as supervisor of the lower rooms.
Soon after this a regular trefoil building can be erected with practicable basement, with the introduction of two small rooms at the inner corners of the back ell, where they need not block light from any room.
From this on to a two-story building with stairs, there are many alternatives, and no regular style of building can be prescribed.
When a town has no adviser at hand, it can apply to the state library commission, or if there is none in the state, to the nearest state commission, which at least can advise from what librarian it can get good advice.
Most of the very small libraries described in the 1899 Report of the Mass. Free Public Library Commission occupy a room or rooms in schoolhouses, town halls, churches, the librarian’s house, or public blocks. The smallest grade of separate library buildings seem to me more uniformly appropriate and beautiful than many of higher grades.