172.
172. For large libraries, where an elevated superintendent’s desk is necessary, the combined desk and drawer cabinet used in the Mitchell Library, Glasgow, has many advantages.
173. Lecture Room.
173. Lecture Room.—Furniture and fittings for children’s departments and lecture rooms require special consideration. The former are dealt with in [Division XIII.] In the lecture room the principal fittings are the platform and the fittings connected with the use of the lantern. Platforms should be wide, and should be as long as it is possible to make them having regard to economy of space in the room. A height of three feet is suitable, and the structure should be solid, so that it may not echo or squeak beneath the tread, and a covering of some sound-deadening material—thick cork-lino or cocoanut-matting—is desirable. A counter or fixed table running along the front has been found useful, and to this water, gas, and similar fittings may be connected for use in science lectures; but this counter is not usually required, and it may obstruct the screen and will certainly prevent the use of the platform for dramatic and similar representations for which a clear stage is necessary. Green baize hangings as a background and front curtains of this material are very effective for several purposes. The platform should so be placed that it can be reached by the lecturers without the necessity of passing through the audience.
For lantern screen there is nothing better than a smooth wall finished off in flat white, but where this is impossible a rigid is preferable to a rolling screen as giving a surface free from folds and kinks. Screens should be kept perfectly clean, as dirt injures the effect of slides incalculably. The lantern itself should be of the electric arc variety, as being easy to manage and always ready with little delay, especially where the “direct” electric current is available. It is best installed in a room outside, or a gallery closed in from, the lecture room, the projection being made through an opening. An electric signal which provides at the platform a push for the use of the lecturer, and sounds a “buzzer” or flashes a small lamp in the operator’s apartment, is probably the best form of lantern signal.
The chairs in lecture rooms should be as comfortable as means will allow, and should be fitted with rubber tips to ensure quiet. Quiet floor coverings should be used in the room, and, indeed, all fittings and furniture should produce that ease of body which will allow the mind to occupy itself exclusively with what is going on upon the platform.