Do not be deceived by the suggestion that labor-saving devices change principles. A yard is more than a foot, by machine as well as by boy. Save time on machines as on pages. Your needs will soon outrun both.
Supervision. “Helpfulness should be aimed at, rather than supervision,” says Champneys,[97] and certainly it should be aimed at with supervision. Accessibility to helpless inquirers invites as well as facilitates easy inquiries. But in America we find that supervision deters as well as detects disorder, noise, mutilation, theft.
Duff-Brown[98] calls attention to one aid not often thought of,—the supervision of one reader over another. This acts where students and serious readers congregate, but somewhat fails in periodical and light-reading and children’s rooms. There supervision is more necessary.
In small libraries, supervision from the delivery desk is all that is generally possible. It can be facilitated by open floors, glass screens, avoidance of corners or projections, and radial bookcases. In larger libraries, provision for attendants at strategic points, such as corners which command adjoining rooms, can be so arranged as to help and supervise with minimum service. A well-arranged desk for each attendant placed thus on picket, will enable him or her to pursue any assigned desk work, without interfering with supervision or information.
Supervision of doors, entrance halls and stairways, is most necessary;—in small libraries, from the desk; in large libraries, through hall porters, who can also watch art treasures and exhibition cases, as well as direct visitors, and avert undesirables.
Decoration: Ornament
Ornament is the last thing to think of about a library. Noticeable exterior ornament is not needed for dignity, and conflicts with simplicity, two appropriate library qualities. “Outside ornament is often vulgar,” says Champneys.[99] Even statuary is not in keeping unless the building has memorial purposes, for which additional funds have been provided. Inside attempts at ornament are often grotesque. Marble columns are out of place, marble walls and staircases showy rather than sensible, wall or ceiling frescoes distracting, floor inlays disconcerting. If funds allow, such features and portraits in vestibules, passage-ways and conversation rooms do not interfere with reading or service. Portraits of donors or deceased trustees or librarians may do in delivery-rooms or light-reading rooms in which exigencies of use require high enough walls and few enough windows to leave available wall space. But in rooms for serious reading, there should be no features of any kind to interfere with reading or attract non-readers. Burgoyne comments,[100] “In Boston, the decorative art makes the public rooms art galleries instead of places for study. The two objects are quite incompatible. The crowds who gather to inspect the decorations are a nuisance to the student who comes to study.” See also the Report of the Examiners of the Boston Public Library in 1895.
“In the reading rooms, ornament which attracts the eye and creates interest, is a hindrance to the usefulness of the rooms.”—Beresford Pite.[101]