From such a statement of the nature of the stock the purpose of the department may be deduced. Primarily, as its name implies, it is a place where references to books are made; but, although this is primary, it is too limited a statement of the functions of the department. In it continuous reading, research, and prolonged study are all carried on, and if a library does not provide facilities for these it is to that extent inefficient. These considerations give rise to certain necessary arrangements, the first of which is freedom of access to quick-reference material.

Fig. 151.—The Mitchell Library, Glasgow. A recent large reference library, with a great central reading-room, and several special departments.

[Fig. 151 enlarged]

Fig. 152.—Plan of Islington Reference Library.

[Fig. 152 enlarged]

In the arrangement of the library building it is essential that the most quiet part of the building which is accessible to the public should be devoted to the reference department. It should be a room which in its design and proportions is dignified, and produces by these things and its furnishing and decorations an atmosphere conducive to mental tranquillity and study. It is impossible to define such an atmosphere, but it exists in all really successful reference libraries, and these may be studied at most of our great cities and towns, as at Bristol, Birmingham, Liverpool, in the British Museum, and elsewhere. The decorations, for example, if there are any beyond the merely architectural, such as painted ceilings, walls, etc., should indeed be artistic, but are appropriate only when they are restrained, inobtrusive, and do not divert readers from the main purpose of the room or encourage visitors to come merely to stare at them. Some reference libraries, built on ecclesiastical models, have stained-glass windows which are beautiful features, but the same principles apply in this form of decoration.

408. Furniture.

408. Furniture.—The library furniture must depend upon the size, shape and lighting of the room, but the alcove system, as it exists at the Bodleian and similar older libraries, has never been surpassed from the point of view of study, although it is possibly not so good as the rotunda of the British Museum, or that of the Library of Congress, and the Picton Reading Room at Liverpool, for merely reference purposes. Again, the alcove system occupies more space than one in which the cases are fixed against the walls and arranged in other parts of the room to secure the maximum of shelf accommodation. As regards tables and seating accommodation the older reference departments in municipal libraries has usually been defective in that they merely allowed seats at long tables, with about twenty-four inches of sitting space and a half of a two- or three-foot table in front, often with provision, equally scant, for a reader to sit opposite. The reference reader requires not only isolation, to a considerable extent, as is provided at the British Museum, but plenty of space in which to spread out his books and papers. Moreover, nothing is more disconcerting and uncomfortable to a reader than the unpleasant proximity of other people, and no student or reader who makes extracts, or has to wrestle with obstinate facts in history, science or philology, can do so if he is environed by others similarly or otherwise engaged, at very close quarters. This is recognized in the British Museum and similar libraries, where each reader has what is virtually a desk to himself so constructed as to secure the maximum of privacy. The provision of small, self-contained separate tables as described in [Section 161] is probably the best that can be made. These not only give plenty of space at the top, but also provide a definite amount of space for books, etc., under the tables themselves. For the consultation of elephant folios and similar very large books the special slope outlined in [Fig. 33] and described in [Section 153] is a reasonable and necessary provision. One or two large flat tables for use in special cases are also to be desired.