Square plan.
An inexpensive building for a small country neighborhood may have one square room with book shelves on the side and rear walls. A convenient entrance is from a square porch on one side of the front corner and a librarian's alcove is at the opposite corner leaving the entire front like a store window which may be filled with plants or picture bulletins. With a stone foundation the wooden frame may be finished with stained shingles.
Oblong plan.
A somewhat larger building may have a wider front with entrance at the center.
Book shelves under high windows may cover the side and rear walls and tables may stand in the open space.
It will be convenient to bring together the books most in demand for circulation on one side of the room and those needed most for study on the opposite side. One corner may contain juvenile books. In this way confusion between readers, borrowers and children will be avoided. Each class of patrons will go by a direct line to its own quarter. This is the beginning of the plan of departments which will be of great importance in the larger building.
The number of books for circulation will increase rapidly and it may soon be necessary to provide double faced floor cases. These will be placed with passages running from the center of the room towards the end and that end will become the book or delivery room and the opposite side will be the study or reference room.
T-shape plan.
The next step is to add space to the rear giving a third department to the still open room. If the book room is at the back the student readers may be at tables in the right hand space and the children in the space on the left. The librarian at a desk in the center is equally near to all departments and may exercise full supervision.
The presence of a considerable number of other busy persons has a sobering and quieting effect on all and the impression of such a library having all its departments in one is dignified and wholesome. It may be well to separate the departments by light open hand rails, screens, cords or low book cases. It is a mistake to divide a small building into three or four small rooms.