Economy of space is in my view best attained by fixed shelves. This dictum I will now endeavor to make good. If the shelves are movable, each shelf imposes a dead weight on the structure of the bookcase, without doing anything to support it. Hence it must be built with wood of considerable mass, and the more considerable the mass of wood the greater are both the space occupied and the ornament needed. When the shelf is fixed, it contributes as a fastening to hold the parts of the bookcase together; and a very long experience enables me to say that shelves of from half- to three-quarters of an inch worked fast into uprights of from three-quarters to a full inch will amply suffice for all sizes of books except large and heavy folios, which would probably require a small, and only a small, addition of thickness.
I have recommended that as a rule the shelves be fixed, and have given reasons for the adoption of such a rule. I do not know whether it will receive the sanction of authorities. And I make two admissions. First, it requires that each person owning and arranging a library should have a pretty accurate general knowledge of the sizes of his books. Secondly, it may be expedient to introduce here and there, by way of exception, a single movable shelf; and this, I believe, will be found to afford a margin sufficient to meet occasional imperfections in the computation of sizes. Subject to these remarks, I have considerable confidence in the recommendation I have made.
I will now exhibit to my reader the practical effect of such arrangement, in bringing great numbers of books within easy reach. Let each projection be three feet long, twelve inches deep (ample for two faces of octavos), and nine feet high, so that the upper shelf can be reached by the aid of a wooden stool of two steps not more than twenty inches high, and portable without the least effort in a single hand. I will suppose the wall space available to be eight feet, and the projections, three in number, with end pieces need only jut out three feet five, while narrow strips of bookcase will run up the wall between the projections. Under these conditions, the bookcases thus described will carry above 2,000 octavo volumes.
And a library forty feet long and twenty feet broad, amply lighted, having some portion of the centre fitted with very low bookcases suited to serve for some of the uses of tables, will receive on the floor from 18,000 to 20,000 volumes of all sizes, without losing the appearance of a room or assuming that of a warehouse, and while leaving portions of space available near the windows for purposes of study. If a gallery be added, there will be accommodation for a further number of five thousand, and the room need be no more than sixteen feet high. But a gallery is not suitable for works above the octavo size, on account of inconvenience in carriage to and fro.
It has been admitted that in order to secure the vital purpose of compression with fixed shelving, the rule of arrangement according to subjects must be traversed partially by division into sizes. This division, however, need not, as to the bulk of the library, be more than threefold. The main part would be for octavos. This is becoming more and more the classical or normal size; so that nowadays the octavo edition is professionally called the library edition. Then there should be deeper cases for quarto and folio, and shallower for books below octavo, each appropriately divided into shelves.
If the economy of time by compression is great, so is the economy of cost. I think it reasonable to take the charge of provision for books in a gentleman's house, and in the ordinary manner, at a shilling a volume. This may vary either way, but it moderately represents, I think, my own experience, in London residences, of the charge of fitting up with bookcases, which, if of any considerable size, are often unsuitable for removal. The cost of the method which I have adopted later in life, and have here endeavored to explain, need not exceed one penny per volume. Each bookcase when filled represents, unless in exceptional cases, nearly a solid mass. The intervals are so small that, as a rule, they admit a very small portion of dust. If they are at a tolerable distance from the fireplace, if carpeting be avoided except as to small movable carpets easily removed for beating, and if sweeping be discreetly conducted, dust may, at any rate in the country, be made to approach to a quantite negligeable.
It is a great matter, in addition to other advantages, to avoid the endless trouble and the miscarriages of movable shelves; the looseness, and the tightness, the weary arms, the aching fingers, and the broken fingernails. But it will be fairly asked what is to be done, when the shelves are fixed, with volumes too large to go into them? I admit that the dilemma, when it occurs, is formidable. I admit also that no book ought to be squeezed or even coaxed into its place: they should move easily both in and out. And I repeat here that the plan I have recommended requires a pretty exact knowledge by measurement of the sizes of books and the proportions in which the several sizes will demand accommodation. The shelf-spacing must be reckoned beforehand, with a good deal of care and no little time. But I can say from experience that by moderate care and use this knowledge can be attained, and that the resulting difficulties, when measured against the aggregate of convenience, are really insignificant. It will be noticed that my remarks are on minute details, and that they savor more of serious handiwork in the placing of books than of lordly survey and direction. But what man who really loves his books delegates to any other human being, as long as there is breath in his body, the office of inducting them into their homes?
And now as to results. It is something to say that in this way 10,000 volumes can be placed within a room of quite ordinary size, all visible, all within easy reach, and without destroying the character of the apartment as a room. But, on the strength of a case with which I am acquainted, I will even be a little more particular. I take as before a room of forty feet in length and twenty in breadth, thoroughly lighted by four windows on each side; as high as you please, but with only about nine feet of height taken for the bookcases: inasmuch as all heavy ladders, all adminicula requiring more than one hand to carry with care, are forsworn. And there is no gallery. In the manner I have described, there may be placed on the floor of such a room, without converting it from a room into a warehouse, bookcases capable of receiving, in round numbers, 20,000 volumes.
The state of the case, however, considered as a whole, and especially with reference to libraries exceeding say 20,000 or 30,000 volumes, and gathering rapid accretions, has been found to require in extreme cases, such as those of the British Museum and the Bodleian (on its limited site), a change more revolutionary in its departure from, almost reversal of, the ancient methods, than what has been here described.
The best description I can give of its essential aim, so far as I have seen the processes (which were tentative and initial), is this. The masses represented by filled bookcases are set one in front of another; and, in order that access may be had as it is required, they are set upon trams inserted in the floor (which must be a strong one), and wheeled off and on as occasion requires.