A lot too high above the street grade may offer architectural advantages, but is bad for public library purposes. Popular departments ought to be directly at street grade, and the necessity of climbing steps hinders rather than attracts readers. A lot sloping upward requires objectionable and expensive approaches, one sloping sideways is unbalanced, but one sloping backwards is often good, for it allows a light basement at the rear, or a stack above and below the main floor at street grade.
It goes without saying that a wet soil is to be avoided where books are to be stored.
In a large city a favorite site for the central library is on some municipal square, near other public buildings. But in such a prominent place, especial care is necessary to escape a heavy architectural style which would darken the building, and divert cost from library facilities to expensive material.
In smaller cities and towns, better sites in proportion may be obtained. Here, where land is cheap enough to allow more space, always provide for growth and future extensions of the building. It has been advised to get enough land for future development, even at expense of the first building.
“The worst site is a deep one, of irregular shape, with only one frontage. If offered, don’t buy, or even accept it as a gift.”—Burgoyne.[161]
But a deep and irregular lot, with a possibility of light on all sides, may not be unfavorable for a building with a stack at the rear. Narrowness in a stack, if somewhat unfavorable to short lines of communication with the desk, give possibilities of excellent daylight everywhere.
Provisions for Growth and Change
It cannot be too strongly urged that a chief caution in planning should be to anticipate and provide for that rapid growth which may strike any American community, large or small, urban or rural; and that development or change of methods which will come even if there is no growth of population. When or how or just where it will come, it is always difficult to foresee. The tide, indeed, seems world-wide. Champneys warns, “Forecast, if possible, and plan in advance. If not, it will be hard to preserve in future a workable home.”[162] Van Name said at St. Louis in 1889, “The present rate of library growth requires far larger provision for the future, in space and in economizing space.”