The Institution
Any library owned by an institution and not by the public, ought to have as good and as thorough advice as it can get from the wisest and most experienced librarians of similar institutions, which its own librarian or any expert will know how to elicit. It will be fortunate if it can secure as its own expert, some such librarian who has recently gone through the whole experience of building.
The officers of the institution should define beforehand, just what scope its library is to cover; just how it is to serve members, special students and visitors; how much money will be required for suitable building and thorough equipment; where enough money is to come from; what site (if site is not already chosen) is most central for probable readers and will lend itself most readily to the purposes of the association.
If its library is sufficiently large for a suite of rooms, but not large enough to demand a separate building, its trustees and architects should devote to the library, if possible, a separate floor or a separate wing or special ell, with provisions for differentiation, change, and growth, and should so locate other departments that are most closely affiliated with the library, in the closest juxtaposition.
Indeed, where the library has begun to be important, rooms need expert advice in location and details almost as much as the building. But when it has attained the dignity of separate housing, all that is said elsewhere about expert advice applies with double force to a highly specialized institution.
The Trustees
To the trustees falls full and final responsibility for all library building. They formulate the needs of the library, get the funds from the proper body, choose the site, elect the librarian, and select the architect. After hearing the librarian and architect, they decide on all its exterior and interior features. With them should really rest either praise or blame for the result. Unlike the librarian and architect, they serve without stipend. They deserve every consideration and full support.
But not every trustee is an archangel. Boards of trustees may harbor many faddists, many cranks, many busy-bodies. How to head these off from meddling with building is a problem in tact. There is often a member who “knows it all,” and cannot be moved by any expert advice. He is just the man who wants to take control. He is dangerous.
“More buildings are spoiled by clients than by architects.”—E. B. Green.[115] And this kind of trustee is the client who is most apt to spoil the library.