Report of Committee on Ventilation and Lighting
June, 1913.
To the Council of the A. L. A.:
Your special committee on ventilation and lighting can submit at this time only another report of progress.
After the meeting at Ottawa the matter of having laboratory and other tests made in connection with the technical and scientific problems was taken up with certain industrial organizations with a view to the possibility of having them, in the interest of scientific knowledge, make the necessary tests for us, at no expense to the Association. Objection developed against this line of procedure, inasmuch as it was feared that less confidence could be placed in such tests when the organization making them (or if the persons making them were in the service of such an organization) had a commercial interest in the results of the tests.
Accordingly the effort was made to have the tests made by the Carnegie Institution of Washington, and also by the Russell Sage Foundation, both of which efforts failed. The matter was then taken up with the Department of Commerce, and we are hopeful that we may be successful in getting the national government to make these tests for us through the Bureau of Standards.
In the meantime the committee is continuing its investigations and experiments so far as the limited resources at its command will permit. In this further study the committee is strengthened in its belief reported a year ago to the effect that most of the ventilating apparatus now in use will have to be discarded as junk and that the whole art and practice of artificial ventilation will have to be entirely remodeled on a correct physiological basis, inasmuch as the present basis appears to be entirely incorrect.
We therefore recommend that the committee be continued for another year. If deemed advisable the committee could prepare a preliminary report of its findings for publication in the Bulletin of the Association. Such a report might be of immediate service to librarians.
As an indication of the committee's difficulties in this matter we may cite the experience of Prof. Brooks of the University of Illinois who, after years of study and experience in illumination, feels less willing today to prescribe a lighting scheme than a few years ago.
Respectfully submitted,