Popular features should not entirely banish books and accommodations for students. “Every public library should be a library of study. Besides professional scholars and teachers, even authors or editors among residents, there are students in the higher schools, university extension students, members of literary clubs, cultivated college graduates, lawyers, clergymen, who should find congenial facilities in a building meant for the whole community.”—Fletcher.[47]
On the other hand, it would be a shame to let such serious reading and literature crowd out any popular or educational features, or take an undue share of the construction or maintenance funds.
What should be especially planned for, is inviting and cozy provision for the ambitious young men or women who want to educate themselves either by general reading, or by the special literature of their occupation in life; and for the tired women whether housekeepers, workers or idlers, who can find in books or magazines or papers relaxation and recreation from their home burdens.
Children’s rooms, now always a principal feature to be planned, will have a separate chapter.
Branch. The branch library, as distinguished from distributing or delivery stations, has its own building, and deserves as careful study as the main library in a small city. Branches vary from merely local stations relying on main libraries for most of the administrative work, to branches practically independent. The problem of branch libraries has come into prominence recently, especially since Carnegie has made so many gifts in this direction. Most of them fall into the “small” grade, but in large cities many rise to the “moderate” and even “medium” figures. One branch library in Philadelphia, with special endowment, cost $800,000, but that is very exceptional.
The first question is site. Good authorities say that there ought to be branches about a mile apart; one, that is, within half a mile’s walk of any family. Crunden says,[48] “The ideal would be to have a branch library as often as we have a public school.” The average constituency of branches in Great Britain is said to be 60,000. In this country it has been suggested that there ought to be one for every 40,000 dense population, or one to 25,000 in opener districts. But there can be no invariable rule. Circumstances differ as well as available funds.
Chas. W. Sutton of Manchester, in an article on branch libraries,[49] summarizes:—
“There should be a lending library for every 40,000 in close populations, 25,000 or 30,000 in scattered communities.
“Placed on car lines in the thick of the population.