To
The Architect
who is the Librarian’s best friend
when they plan together
a sound, useful and beautiful building
this volume is inscribed
EDITORIAL PREFACE
Of the author of this volume it was said by President Hill at the 1906 A. L. A. Conference, “he has given the subject of Library Architecture more thought and attention, probably, than any other member.”
Mr. Soule is well known to older librarians. To introduce him to a younger generation and to architects, we would say that although he is a publisher and bookseller, and not professionally a librarian, he has had an effective training in library science. He joined the American Library Association in 1879, became at once a working member, has attended twenty Conferences, and has been elected to office, as follows:
- 1888-1899—Trustee of the Brookline (Mass.) Public Library.
- 1890-1908—Publishing Board, A. L. A.
- 1890—Vice-president.
- 1893-1896, 1900-1905—Member of the Council.
- 1894-1906—Trustee Endowment Fund.
- 1906-1912—Member of the Institute.
In 1890, when a prominent trustee had been quoted as saying, “it was no use consulting librarians about building, for no two of them agree on any one point,” he wrote, and the 1890 Conference unanimously adopted, “Points of Agreement among Librarians on Library Architecture.”
In 1892 he published in the Boston press an exhaustive series of nine letters, taking the side of the librarians of the country against what they thought to be radical errors in the management and building of the Boston Public Library.
In 1901 he wrote the article “Library,” for Sturgis’s Dictionary of Architecture.