Public Libraries
“For the American people the library of the future is unquestionably the free public library, established with private or public funds, and maintained wholly or in part at public expense under municipal control.”—Fletcher.[43]
“The ‘public library’ is established by state laws, supported by local taxation and voluntary gifts, and managed as a public trust. It is not a library simply for scholars, but for the whole community, the mechanic, the laborer, the youth, for all who desire to read, whatever be their rank or condition in life.”—William F. Poole.[44]
“The library of the immediate future for the American people is unquestionably the free public library, brought under municipal ownership and control and treated as part of the educational system.”—Dana, L. P.[45]
The building of the public library must recognize and serve these noble aims. The idea of public libraries is as old as Rome; their aims are essentially modern in their democracy.
“Modern ideas of the functions of a public library are,—lending books for home use; free access to the shelves; cheerful and homelike surroundings; rooms for children; co-operation with schools; long hours of opening; the extension of branch-library systems and traveling libraries; lectures and exhibits; the thousand and one activities that distinguish the modern library from its more passive predecessor.”—Bostwick.[46]
The impulse of these ideas should be practically felt in the planning of buildings. Precedents, models, the fetters of architectural style, must be thrown aside where they impede or hamper progress. Architecture must march side by side with Library Science, should even lead it and show it the most effective ways to work out the new idea.
In the first place, “cheerful and homelike surroundings” do not accord with lofty rooms, vast halls, and heavy architecture; and dazzling decoration must not repel the man in a working suit.