READERS’ ROOMS
Reading Generally
F. B. Perkins[310] divides reading into three classes: Entertainment,
Acquisition of knowledge, Authorship. This epitomizes our American
division of reading rooms.
What I shall call the light-reading room will provide for all who drop
in at a library to pass a quiet, restful, recreative half hour, a very
large proportion of readers. They are attracted by the lighter magazines,
the illustrated weeklies and monthlies, and books into which they can dip
pleasantly for a few moments. This is generally known as the periodical
room.
The serious reading room, usually called _the_ reading room, is intended
for such readers as get books from the shelves to study or read earnestly
and long, or are preparing themes, papers, newspaper articles—even (when
there is slender provision of separate study rooms) where they are
writing books.
I would add a fourth use of a library—perhaps the commonest—as it helps
all other classes, that is, what we call reference use. (In England where
the reference library and its reading room seem to cover all reading of
books in the library as distinguished from magazines and newspapers,
this is called quick or ready reference.) A separate reference room
or separate corner of the reading room near the door holds all the
books to which visitors look for scraps of information, but never read
consecutively.
Serious Reading Room
By this phrase I mean the room for serious readers who want quiet, but
do not need separate rooms. The English seem to call this the reference
room, a name I apply only to their “quick” or “ready reference” room.
Their “reading room” I call in this work periodical room, in which books
for light or “half hour” reading in the library may be shelved.
This main or general reading room is usually on the ground floor in
smaller libraries, but may be relegated to the second or the top, or
indeed to any other convenient floor, accessible by elevators and in good
communication with the stack.
In libraries where there is space for it on the ground floor, it can be
supervised and served from the central delivery desk, but when elsewhere,
it must have a separate desk and service.
In the largest libraries it often occupies a central position and a
circular form. With a lofty open dome above, it is an impressive feature,
but wastes space which might be utilized otherwise, and it is said to be
more or less drafty and hard to heat evenly.
Position at the top as at the New York Public Library, has great
advantage in light without waste of space, or superfluous loftiness. If
over the stack (though the supporting walls have then to be stronger than
usual) it has the advantage of short and straight lines to the books, and
is said to lend itself to enlargement for readers and books _pari passu_.
Good elevator service is a requisite in this form. “I incline more and
more to the reading room on top of the building, especially in a large
city.”—(_Dewey._[311]) So Andrews, at the same Conference. He also said,
“I believe in the single reading room [as compared with the Newberry or
Poole’s plan] in a public library as a saving in trained assistants, and
because it is impossible to classify readers in rooms as you do books.”
“Plain outlines are best. Recesses, alcoves, bay windows and nooks
are difficult of supervision and spoil the public character of a
library.”—_O. Bluemner._[312]
The main requisites of a reading room are quiet, privacy, light, good air
and space.
=Quiet.= This means not only regulations against conversation, but
various physical conditions. For instance, absence of stir or motion;
exclusion of such magazines as are merely looked over with fluttering of
leaves; exclusion from the shelves (if there must be shelves around the
walls) of books frequently wanted by readers and attendants; (reference
books, class books, new books and others inviting frequent examination,
should be put on the side or in a corner near the entrance, concentrating
stir there;) noiseless floors; echoless walls and ceilings; exclusion of
outside noises; no stairs directly into or out of the room; no passage
through to other rooms.
=Privacy.= This requirement can be met by the proper provision and
arrangement of the furniture, which will be further treated under the
head of Tables. The former method was to use almost exclusively large
open tables, seating ten or more, or tables with lengthwise and crosswise
partitions, setting aside bins or stalls like voting booths to shut out
distracting sights. The large plain tables are not now in favor, the
tendency being toward tables for six, four, two, or even one. See floor
plans and interiors of libraries in Koch and elsewhere.
=Light.= Light falling from the left, shaded from the eyes, focussed on
the table in front of the reader on the book he is reading there, or the
paper on which he is writing, is desirable. If the room is lofty, windows
high in the walls, carefully shaded from glare, are out of range of
reader’s eyes. If lower, as most rooms are, the table seats should be so
disposed if possible as to give each reader light from the left.
The question of artificial light is discussed elsewhere. The best of high
lamps for diffused light, of side lights and of hanging lamps to light
readers, is a special study for the architect. As readers have varied
eyesight, individual table lights, adjustable and severally operated are
best on the whole, but the wiring of each table fixes its location so
that it cannot be moved in cleaning or re-spacing. Bulbs hanging about
eight feet from the floor are much used.
=Good Air.= This is as important as it often is unsatisfactory. Bad air
interferes more than anything else with clearness and concentration
of thought. Mr. Ranck of Grand Rapids is now chairman of an A. L. A.
Committee on this subject. He writes me: “Personally, the more I have
looked into it, the more I am convinced that the physiological side
is most difficult, not the mere keeping down the amount of carbon
dioxide. I am inclined to think it will be necessary to make a number
of experimental tests to determine these points.” The report of this
committee will be interesting.
Meanwhile, the best thing to do is to get a report from recent buildings
as to their methods, and the success of each. Evidently the problem
varies with the size and situation of the room and the method of
heating, including heat from artificial light.
If perfect ventilation could be installed, crowded tables would not be
quite so bad.
=Space.= H. T. Hare, an architect, in a recent number of the _Library
Association Record_,[313] writes: “Almost all our public libraries are
too closely packed for comfort, health and movement. A fifty per cent
increase in floor space would not be at all extravagant.”
If there is money to spare, this might be desirable, but unfortunately
few libraries, large or small, have funds enough to allow luxuries. The
spacing of seats must be as close as health and convenience will permit.
It is generally agreed that for serious reading, which may require room
to spread books open and to lay manuscripts beside them, 25 square feet
are ample, 20 square feet sufficient, 16 square feet rather a crowded
minimum, to include chair, table and passage-ways.
As to size, Duff-Brown[314] suggests finding the _daily_ average of
readers and plan for one quarter of this daily attendance at any one time
during the day, as sufficient space to allow.
Reference Room
As already said this is a very useful room, or section of a room; indeed
it might even be put in an anteroom or vestibule, to include such books
as will be used for quick consultation, but never for reading. It should
be for the openest and speediest access. As Spofford specifies,[315]
“It would include encyclopædias, dictionaries, glossaries, etc.,”
or according to Fletcher,[316] “general and special encyclopædias
(such as music, fine arts, mechanics, geography, classical, Biblical,
biographical, etc.)” Dr. E. C. Richardson[317] lays down that “at least a
small selection of the best reference books should be accessible to the
public.”
“Place as little hindrance as may be to the busy man who runs in to
glance at the dictionary, directory, or time-table.”—_Bostwick._[318]
This room need not be as large as either of the other reading rooms, but
it should be most accessible, near the front door, near the desk, near
the catalog. It should have wall shelving for large and small books,
drawn under specifications by the librarian, for just what volumes he
wants to display there. Revolving bookcases are convenient here. This is
especially the place for the old-fashioned ledge, and for a few narrow
tables like those used in front of a catalog case, with small, light
chairs or stools; just as little furniture as would be needed for taking
down a volume at a time to glance at, or to take brief notes from. How
many it should accommodate at once depends on the library and its use. It
will be wanted, in brief visits, by very many of the visitors, down even
to the children of the higher grades of the schools.
Although one of the most important departments of large or small
libraries, it is not the place for high walls or architectural ornament.
It should have especially good light at all points day and evening, for
the type of many reference books is so small as to try the eyesight at
its best.
If there is not space in the building for a separate room, put it, if
possible, in the same room with open-access shelves, or the magazines,
or in a corridor, where there is already some confusion; for the use
of reference books is a distraction to serious reading anywhere near.
If they must be put in the reading room, give the reference books a
stretch of shelving or a corner near the entrance and desk, so that their
consultation will leave serious readers afar off and undisturbed.
Might not a good arrangement of a reference room be on the window side
of the delivery or open-access room, with broad alcoves opposite the
light, and with a good ledge under the windows; or just with floor cases
perpendicular to the windows, spaced wide like open-access shelves, but
having old-fashioned ledges to help consultation of reference books? Here
is opportunity for ingenious planning.
=Standard Library.= Mr. Foster’s plan of a Standard Library room at
Providence has something to commend it from an educational or didactic
point of view, but it would hardly be much missed by the public. In new
buildings where all available space is in demand for more imperative
needs, I doubt if I should include such a room, unless already adopted as
part of the policy of the library. If it is, however, to be included it
should have an architectural dignity—not necessarily splendid—to conform
to its purpose. Why might not this be combined with the trustees’ room?
The bindings of the books would adorn the walls, and make the room a
worthy meeting place of the board at evening, without interfering with
what I imagine is not an eager or crowded use by the public during the
day.
Or, if its object be not quiet reading, but to bring the books
prominently to notice, to exhibit them, why not treat it as an open
access or club room, open to conversation? Would not this further its
primary object, attract visitors, and promote taking these volumes home
or into quiet reading rooms to read?
Light-Reading Rooms
=Half-hour reading.=[319] This is generally called Magazine or Periodical
room in our libraries, but I should include in it some provision for
casual reading of books also. In 1903 I suggested at an Atlantic City
Conference, shelving in such rooms for a class of books every library
owns, but usually scatters under various classifications, although their
common purpose is for episodical or temporary entertainment, such as is
known as “half-hour reading.” On this shelving I advocated placing a good
selection of the best short stories, readable essays, anthologies, brief
poems, humor, and so on, to be read in the room, just as magazines are
used, for such pastime as the reader’s time will afford.
“Three-quarters of the readers are destitute of literary culture, but
need recreation and pastime.”—_Winsor._[320]
My suggestion then evoked interest, but I do not know that it has
been acted on anywhere. I renew it here as a use for wall shelving in
periodical rooms for new buildings, and in concentrating there all
recreative reading. In this light-reading room a certain amount of
movement and noise must be expected, which will not much annoy the
readers there. The coming and going of visitors whose stay must be brief,
the handling of magazines or books, the turning of pages, the rustling of
newspapers, perhaps the murmurs of children over illustrations, are to be
expected. Here such wall shelving as has been suggested would not be out
of place.
=Periodicals.= Here are kept such few local and metropolitan newspapers
as are taken by the average library. Magazines and weeklies either
lie freely on large flat tables or are kept for open access in wooden
pigeon-holes or pockets against the walls without intervention of any
attendant, or are kept behind a counter to be issued by a special
attendant on call. Where there are many readers and a large number
of serials, experience has shown that it is better to keep them in
pigeon-holes behind a counter, to be delivered by an attendant.
“Where not a large number of periodicals is taken, they are usually
placed on tables without a special attendant.”—_Poole._[321]
The furniture of the room and its arrangement will depend on which system
is to be used in the library. This should be settled in advance.
The chairs used here should be strong, but light; rubber-tipped so as to
be noiseless when moved. Except in looking at illustrated papers, readers
may prefer to hold octavo magazines, or books, in their hands, turning
their chairs back or side to the light, in the easiest posture. Arm
chairs for such use would be appropriate.
It is not supposed to be necessary to allow so much floor space for each
reader in such rooms. Duff-Brown[322] considers 12 square feet enough in
England, but our usage in America is 16 square feet, which is better for
elbow room, passage and ventilation.
“In rooms for magazine reading, there should be more room for chairs than
tables.”—_Champneys._[323] This seems good advice, unless the periodicals
are to be laid loose on the tables.
It is often the custom to put reviews and other serious magazines in the
reading room, leaving all the popular or recreative serials in the room
for light reading.
There are frequent articles in English library journals about arrangement
of magazines, but I find nothing among them which seems to improve on
methods generally understood here. See Duff-Brown.[324]
“A really effective system, of displaying periodicals is about as
difficult to find as a first folio Shakespeare.”—_Burgoyne._[325]
The few newspapers taken are generally mounted on sticks and hung from
racks, though I have seen them left loose on tables.
Newspaper Room
In English libraries this department seems prominent in all buildings,
large and small. “The English newsroom is generally the largest and most
convenient room in the building.” In America, a few newspapers are kept
in the light-reading room, but only large public libraries have separate
rooms for newspapers. Where a considerable collection is kept, a large
room will be required, with single sloping desks against the walls or
double desks on the floor, with or without stools; or sometimes the
papers are hung on the hooks of racks, and used at tables (with chairs)
close by.
The newspaper room may be put in the basement with a separate entrance,
as its use and supervision are generally separate from other uses of the
library.
“Newspaper and magazine rooms should not be too large; two 30 × 50
are much less noisy than one 50 × 60, less draughty and easier to
ventilate.”—_Burgoyne._[326]
The opinion expressed by Dr. Poole in the United States Public Library
Report of 1876,[327] “It is thought in some libraries that the expense
of newspapers could be better applied to some other purposes,” seems to
be echoed in recent discussions in England. See The Library Assistant,
Vol. 4.[328] A moderate view advanced at one meeting was this: “It is
exceedingly doubtful whether a newsroom is justified in towns with a
population under 45,000.” The matter is well summed up in the Library
Association Record.[329] Reading the debates, and weighing the arguments
_pro_ and _con_, does not lead one to recommend planners of American
libraries to provide more space for newspapers than it is customary to
allow with us: a rack or two in small and medium libraries, for local
papers and one or two metropolitan journals, but no separate newspaper
rooms except in the public libraries of large cities. Even there, I
imagine their use is more for reference and information than it seems to
be in England. Champneys[330] calls the newspaper reader “a professional
loafer.”
However, “In libraries where the newspaper room is somewhat inaccessible,
there is little annoyance from the tramp element. Branch library reading
rooms in New York City, put on the third story for lack of sufficient
space below, are almost entirely free from tramps. People willing to
climb to that story really want to read.”—_Bostwick._[331]
This fact is worth noting in planning large libraries.
Children’s Room
This department, now considered a cardinal necessity in all libraries
great or small, is a development of the last generation. No special
rooms were devoted to this purpose before 1890. “Today it is tending
to be a practically separate library, with its own books, circulation,
catalogues, statistics and staff.”—(_Bostwick._[332]) So great a success
has it become, that a library without special provision for children
would now be a curiosity.
In the smallest libraries, with only one room, separate tables and
shelves are set aside for children. As libraries grow in grade, separate
rooms are provided with special attendants as well. Here the shelving,
tables and chairs are lower, often of two or three suitable sizes.
The idea at the outset was to segregate children so that their motion
and chatter should not annoy adults who were using the library; now the
notion is entirely educational, to catch and interest young children,
so that they will continue to use the library as they grow up. There
are even separate rooms for smaller tots, on the kindergarten idea of
attracting them with pictures before they begin to read. This purpose is
furthered by having suitable pictures on the walls. Rooms are also fitted
up for small audiences to whom stories are read or told.
Although children are only expected for a few hours every day, they are
apt to swarm at those hours. The room or rooms so used ought to be at
the same time homelike, cozy, attractive, and also well ventilated. The
ground floor is the best place, though the basement has often to be
used, in default of room above, and children have been sent up one flight
of stairs, because they are better able to climb than adults. The stairs
and hand rails should in this case conform to children’s stature. If they
can be shut off from the reading room by sound-proof partitions, quiet is
preserved for the readers. Children are apt to be restless and murmurous
if not noisy. “Children do not mind noise and crowding; adults do.” In
large buildings separate entrances are provided for children.
Special reference rooms are even provided in some libraries, and in the
largest buildings teachers’ rooms adjoin, so as to bring all school
influences into the same suite and system.
Bostwick[333] advises (why?) that shelving should be confined to the
walls if possible.
In planning, the librarian should determine the scheme he will adopt for
treating this problem, and a room or portion of a room or a suite of
rooms should be assigned and fitted after the latest and most approved
manner.
Discussion is still active, and new methods are developed yearly with
constantly improving conveniences.
In England this movement appears to be viewed with some distrust.
Duff-Brown[334] speaks of “the epidemic raging in the United States.” But
he devotes four paragraphs to it, and Champneys[335] three pages. The
latter, quoting Clay’s School Buildings, gives an interesting formula of
heights of seats and tables for children of different ages, though he
thinks it difficult to get the small children to use low tables and the
reverse. He also specifies the need of low hand rails for children on
stairs; even two rails, one for adults, one for children.
See Marvin, pp. 12, 17, 18; Dana, Lib. Pr., 167; Bostwick, 78, 85; L. J.
1897, p. 181; Conf. 19, 28; 10 P. L. 346.
Women’s Rooms
The separation of boys and girls, usually by a low hand rail, is favored
in children’s rooms, by obvious parallelism with school customs, but the
separation of men and women into different rooms has never been common in
America, although separate tables are sometimes assigned to “the use of
ladies.” But no “woman’s room” is a necessity to consider in planning.
In England it has been different. Duff-Brown[336] reports eighty women’s
rooms among over four hundred public libraries there, but he pronounces
them unnecessary. Champneys[337] also thinks them “an indifferent
success.” “Experience has proved that a separate room for women is
unnecessary.”—(_Burgoyne._[338]) If that is the verdict where they have
been extensively tried, there seems to be no good precedent for wasting
space on them in American libraries.
In various discussions of this subject, it has been stated that women
sometimes use tables set aside for them, but not special rooms, and that
such rooms require closer supervision, because the few who use them are
more apt to mutilate or deface books and periodicals than any other class
of readers.
The Blind
See Bostwick’s chapter on “Libraries for the Blind.”[339]
“Books for the blind are handled by a public library in much the same
way as those for the seeing. It is common to have a separate department
or suite of rooms, but this is not necessary.... Owing to the size of
the books, shelving for them is of unusual depth.... Free access to the
shelves is as valuable to a blind reader as to one who has the use of his
eyes.”
“The question of space will arise in many places. No space could,
however, be devoted to a more humane and valuable purpose than the
storage of books for the blind, and every encouragement and support
should be given to the movement.”—_Duff-Brown._[340]
Because of the space required, very careful consideration should be given
by the building committee as to how much space the conditions of their
community will allow them to give to such special wants. If they decide
to have rooms for the blind, these ought to be, if possible, near an
entrance from the street level. In regard to dimensions, shelving, etc.,
the librarian would best inquire of some library of the same grade and
class. Experience is the best teacher, and the local treatment of this
subject must be defined and specially planned for.
Special Rooms
Small libraries have no space for differentiation. One room, or a few
rooms, must be divided by rails, low bookcases, or glass partitions, into
the functions they can manage to separate. But as a library enlarges,
and grows to other stories, it finds many advantages in segregating
different classes of books and readers, thus approaching Dr. Poole’s plan
of separate reading rooms, or the department plan in universities. Even
before any such activities have grown enough to occupy a full room, any
space in a new plan which can be spared may well be marked “unassigned.”
Some of these rooms are used in all public libraries of all sizes except
the smallest; some of them are desirable in many other classes of
libraries.
These rooms, in about the order of need, as libraries grow, are,—
(1) Local Literature,
(2) Study,
(3) Classes,
(4) Patents, Science, Useful Arts,
(5) Public Documents,
(6) Art: Prints,
(7) Music,
(8) Maps,
(9) Education,
(10) Lectures,
(11) Exhibitions,
(12) Pamphlets,
(13) Bound Serials,
(14) Special Collections,
(15) Information,
(16) Conversation,
(17) Unassigned.
These rooms, except Information, do not demand ground-floor space,
but can be assigned to upper floors. In a large library, they will be
accessible by elevators anywhere; in a two-story library, or even in
one of three stories with easy flights of stairs, the fewer readers who
want to use them may be asked to climb rather than the larger throngs of
general readers or borrowers of books.
=Local Literature.= I take up this first, because even a very small
library may begin a collection, if only part of a shelf can be given
to it. “In a small place,” says Bostwick,[341] “the library may go
as far in such directions as its resources warrant, and even without
financial ability, it may stimulate sufficient interest to secure
volunteer helpers.” If you have or can get to look at Duff-Brown,[342]
see his specification of the books, etc., a library may include in a
“local collection.” Everything local in the way of printed matter, is
his summary. See a series of articles in The Library Asso. Rec., Vol. 7,
1905, pp. 1 to 30, and Vol. 13, p. 268. This is an English example well
worth following.
A local collection may include, besides books and pamphlets, maps,
prints, even pictures, for which hanging space will be needed on the
walls. Indeed, if a local antiquarian society can be drawn in as
assistant handlers and curators, such a collection may assume a museum
phase, and may need low bookcases for books, with ledges above for models
and busts, cupboards for pamphlets and small objects, even glass cases
for relics. It should have floor space for visitors before all these
cases, and a large table and chairs for committee meetings. It is one
of the rooms which might be shared by the trustees where accommodations
are restricted. There is ample opportunity for special planning in such
a room, in accordance with the policies of the administration of the
library.
=Study Rooms.= Here again the smallest libraries cannot spare special
facilities. All users must share the limited space available. But
when they get beyond the one-room or one-floor stage, some corners or
intervals between other departments, or ends of corridors, or mezzanine
rooms, might be found for private rooms, to be used for individuals,
either alone or with one scribe or typewriter. Even in small towns,
there are cultivated citizens, or professional people, or teachers, or
reporters, even authors, who wish to use books, and prepare manuscripts
alone, and can safely be trusted to do so without supervision. How great
a service such rooms might do in any American community, I do not think
is generally recognized.
“It is the library alone that can furnish inventors, investigators,
and students of all kinds the opportunity to forestall wasteful
effort.”—_Bostwick._[343]
For individuals, such rooms can be small, and low, of almost any form,
simply furnished with one small table and two chairs, with shelves at one
side or end for a few books, and one window, not necessarily large, but
giving good light on the table.
“A large room with stalls, or a series of small rooms with shelves, for
students making protracted investigations and needing to keep books
several days.”—_Winsor._[344]
Duff-Brown, however, thinks that students’ rooms only establish another
“privileged class,” and make further demands upon the staff for service
and oversight.
=Rooms for Classes.= In close connection with the last idea (indeed rooms
might be interchanged for use either several and collective), are the
many classes, clubs, associations, etc., in the community so closely
connected with the use of books that the library ought to offer them
whatever hospitality its space can afford.
“The modern public library is the helpful friend of scientific, art,
and historical societies, of the educational labor organizations, of
city improvement organizations, of teachers’ clubs, parents’ societies,
and women’s clubs. At the library should be rooms suitable for their
gatherings.”
“One of the most important things in a library of any size is a room
where a class can be met by their teacher, and not interfere with the
regular work of the library.”—_C. A. Cutter._[345]
“Study clubs, reading circles, extension teaching, and other allied
agents.”—_Dewey._
See liberal and well-lighted group of “seminar rooms” in the Wisconsin
State Historical Society plans.—_Adams._[346]
In a paper by Arthur E. Bostwick (which I happened upon in an English
periodical[347]), there is this interesting account of the various
uses of rooms in branch libraries at St. Louis: “Each has an assembly
room _and one or more club rooms_, which are loaned free to any
organizations desiring to use them for intellectual advancement, or for
legitimate forms of recreation, such as women’s clubs, chess clubs,
groups of working men, socialists, classes in literature and philosophy,
self-culture, and reading circles, art or handicraft societies, athletic
clubs, dramatic clubs, military organizations, ecclesiastical bodies,
the Boy Scouts, high school alumni, English classes for immigrants, D.
A. R., etc.” I imagine that most trustees would draw the line far short
of the “etc.,” but the list indicates to what length libraries are going
on social and sociological lines, for which provision must be made in
building.
Rooms for this purpose may be plainly painted and plainly furnished, but
should be adequately high, especially well ventilated and made cheerful
by color and light. How to define their sizes would be a matter for the
local librarian to guess at, with his line of activities well mapped out.
Where so much work beyond mere reading is to be done, there should be
at least one sizable lecture room (the basement would do), one or more
large rooms divisible by screens into several smaller rooms, and as many
smaller rooms with sound-proof provisions as space would allow.
=Patents, Science, Useful Arts.= In industrial communities a room or
suite of rooms for the literature of science and the useful arts,
including sets of English and American patent specifications, will be
found useful. Winsor[348] emphasized the necessity of providing for rapid
growth in this department, at that time “150 large volumes a year.”
A small library may properly shelve such scientific books as would
especially benefit its working constituency, but could not think of
patent reports. This is a luxury for the large libraries only, with
present and prospective space to spare. Floor space is necessary for
readers, with tables large and plentiful enough for many large volumes
and plates outspread. Shelf room is needed around the walls or in
alcoves, on the ground floor for the octavos, above for the larger books.
Where the stories of the building have been already made lofty (it would
not be necessary to have them lofty for this room alone), a favorite form
has recurred to the first American “typical plan,” to have around the
walls tiers of alcoves and galleries combined, about the only place this
discredited arrangement survives.
Where the height of stories does not invite this form, such rooms can
well take a frequent law library phase, with tables near front windows
and combinations of wall shelving and wall cases opposite the windows,
narrow alcoves as it were, for book storage, but not for readers.
Here seems an excellent opportunity to install some form of the new
sliding cases, say a row of such cases along an inner blind wall, with
tables and chairs toward the windows.
=Public Documents.= “Pub. Docs.” are a burden on all libraries. They
are the first gift to small village libraries, the accumulating gifts
to growing libraries, the incubus on large libraries, and yet all feel
obliged to keep at least part of them. Some of the national and state
publications are very valuable, when distributed throughout the classes
to which they belong; but of the large mass of records which ought to be
preserved somewhere, what shall be retained, and where shall it be kept?
“Do not waste time, in the early days of the library, in securing public
documents, save a few of purely local value. Take them if offered and
store them.”—_Dana._[349]
See the sensible suggestions of Bostwick:[350] “Government documents
are a bugbear to many libraries.... We have some getting more than they
want, others that have to buy them. The library of moderate size, not a
repository, is inclined to disregard all government publications, which
is a pity. The large library will shelve everything.”
A serious problem in planning is where to stow this superfluity without
interfering with essentials.
In an old house closets, upper stories and dry cellars can be fitted
with fixed wooden shelving (for the sets are of uniform or similar
sizes), some for octavos, some for quartos. New buildings may have a
room or rooms assigned almost anywhere out of the way, even in the
center of cellar or attic, with only artificial light. If the original
or duplicates of the most important volumes are shelved under subjects
elsewhere, the use of pub. docs. will be so infrequent that their
location is a subordinate question.
How much space to assign is a question that depends on the circumstances
and policy of the library; for instance, whether it is keeping United
States, state and foreign government issues; or only one or part of one.
In a small library a closet or an obscure corner will do. In a larger
library, a dry part of the basement or cellar is enough. In a very large
library, wherever space can be best spared.
Here again sliding cases may come into play.
How much space this literature may occupy is indicated in the L. C.
Report of 1901,[351] which states that there were 87,654 volumes under
this head in the Library of Congress at that date, besides 12,442 state
“Session laws.”
=Duplicates.= A room for laying aside duplicates is needed in all
libraries large enough to have them. It needs as much rough wooden wall
or floor shelving as the number or prospective number of duplicates
demands, and can be put in cellar, basement, attic, or in any place not
needed by the more active departments. It is one of the rooms that do
not absolutely need good natural light, because it is not to be used by
readers or the public.
There should, however, be space enough for ready access to the books
by attendants, and light enough for inspection. If there is to be any
attempt made at systematic and continued exchange of duplicates with
other libraries, this space and light will be more needed than if storage
only is required.
As handling, access and inspection may be required at any moment, this
class of books seems hardly adapted to sliding-case shelving.
=Art.= Small libraries cannot spare a separate room for this literature.
But in many buildings in æsthetic communities of no great size, an “Art
Room” is set aside before other extra departments attain the dignity of
separation. Often a suite of rooms is assigned to the ornamental arts,
Art, Prints and Photographs, Architecture, etc. Here, if anywhere, some
elaboration in cases, shelving and furniture, in harmony with the motive,
is excusable. The rooms surely should be most attractive in form and
color. The bindings in themselves of books of these classes are usually
decorative.
An unusual proportion of the shelving should be designed for large
quartos and folios, to be laid flat and handled with care; part of the
shelves, at least, with rollers.
Glazed bookcases preserve valuable books from dust and grime. Sliding
doors leave them accessible. Large tables or desks or sloping ledges,
with specially good light, are needed.
The location of such rooms should be prominent. No space can usually be
spared on the ground floor, but a second floor, with simple, dignified,
easy stairs, is an excellent location, and the top floor superb, as it
allows good top light without interfering with wall space for shelving
and engravings above. Especially is this floor appropriate, if its center
is allotted to an exhibition room on whose walls or in whose cases public
exhibitions of the library’s artistic prints and portfolios can be
occasionally held.
=Prints.= Bostwick[352] says, “A department of the public library that is
increasing in interest, and that may be said to be partly art collection,
partly repository of useful information in pictorial form, is the print
department.... Such collections are of value” (to eight specified classes
of readers).
This use should be considered in planning an art room or suite.
See fine photographic view of the Division of Prints in L. C. Report
1901,[353] which will suggest ideas of arrangement.
=Public Photographing.= “In connection with such a suite, in libraries
where visitors are allowed to make copies, a small room fitted for
photographing, with an adjoining dark room, would be a convenience.
In the largest libraries copies might be made for users at their
cost.”—_Burgoyne._[354]
Bernard R. Green writes me, from the Library of Congress, “Be sure to
emphasize conveniences for photographing and other processes of copying.”
Dr. Garnett in Essays on Librarianship[355] argues that every first class
library should have a department to reproduce books and manuscripts by
photography, managed by an expert on permanent salary, with a complete
equipment.
Burgoyne, in The Libr. Asso. Record,[356] wishes for public use in large
libraries “a room say 10 × 15 with north light, for making photographic
copies of prints and plates so that valuable books need not be taken from
the premises.”
=Music.= Small libraries cannot afford a separate room for this use.
Such provision as is necessary can be made in the open access rooms or
near the desk. Bostwick remarks[357] that music is more valuable for
circulation than for reference, sheets of music, and collections, being
usually in quarto or small folio size. Duff-Brown advises[358] that it
be shelved with uprights only eighteen inches apart, so that volumes or
pieces will support each other.
As the collection assumes an important size, and includes sets of opera
scores and assembled works, it may be given a separate room, or two small
rooms, with special wall shelving. It has become somewhat usual, in large
libraries, to put a piano here for trying scores, and phonographs for
repeating them. When this is done, the room or one of the rooms should,
of course, have perfectly sound-proof partitions, to shut off sound from
other departments.
Provision of some kind must be considered for pianola rolls and
phonographic records.
This department may well be assigned to an upper floor. It should, of
course, provide shelving for the literature of music.
=Maps.= Any small library may have atlases, for which special shelving
must be provided. An economical provision can be made by putting flat
shelving under the table holding the catalog case.
A separate room for this branch of literature, which includes bound
volumes, loose sheets, wall charts, globes, etc., is set aside only in
large libraries. It cannot be expected on the ground floor, but might be
on the same floor with Art, as it requires similar height, arrangement,
light, and access.
Maps are kept in three forms, as in volumes (either coming in atlases, or
bound up by the library) or in loose sheets or on rollers. For volumes,
sliding, flat, and upright shelving will provide suitable stowage.
For sheet maps or charts, large, shallow wooden drawers in dust-proof
cases, sometimes with wooden flaps in front, are usual. Patent metallic
map-cases are better, but more expensive. A high room affords wall space
for such charts as can be read at a distance, and are frequently used.
Wall space from the floor up should be reserved for hanging maps. Andrews
and others recommend Jenkins’ Map Roller. For using maps in any form,
large tables in the centre of the room (trestle tables will do, to be
brought in when wanted), and sloping desks or ledges under the windows,
may be provided.
As sufficient space for this department is often hard to spare, a good
location for it is at the end of a corridor. Here doors can be omitted,
and the corridor space can be taken into the room. The corridor wall
opposite windows is a fine place for hanging maps; the floor of the
corridor, for globes and the like.
See C. W. Andrews,[359] Windsor,[360] Bostwick,[361] Duff-Brown,[362]
Champneys,[363] The Library Assistant, Vol. 8.[364] See also a fine view
of the Library of Congress map room in their 1901 report.[365] To show
how important a department this may become, and what room it may occupy,
take note that the Library of Congress has 2,600 atlases and 57,000 maps
and charts.
=Education.= This is an important subject in large libraries, and may
even demand a separate room in smaller grades where there is much school
work done.
A simple room of moderate size and height, simply furnished, with wall
shelving or floor cases for pedagogic literature will answer all purposes
for teachers, committees and interested citizens.
Its position would best be near the school or children’s department,
using the same entrance.
It might also be used for teachers with classes, for laying out and
sending out books to schools, or for a school reference department.
Indeed, as all Art rooms may properly be grouped together and assigned to
the same floor, all rooms connected with children, schools, teachers, or
education should be shared, or grouped together with a common entrance,
corridor, or stairway.
=Lectures.= There seems to be a difference of opinion in this country as
to the necessity or even the advisability of giving up space to assembly
rooms or lecture rooms.
“In a small building an assembly room is a nuisance,” says Bostwick.[366]
See, however, his enumeration quoted under Rooms for Classes,[367] of the
uses to which an assembly room has been put in a St. Louis branch.
In England, lecture rooms among progressive libraries are considered
essential.[368]
It seems to me that a part of the basement, in all buildings which have
basements, can generally be spared for a fairly large room to be put to a
variety of uses, which even if not directly germane to the use of books,
are proper work for a neighborhood club, which is what the modern small
or branch library is coming to be. A fine room can be made under radial
bookcases.
It is not necessary, or wise to have a sloping floor such as is used
in colleges or public halls; too much height would be wasted by the
slope. Nor need the platform be large or high;—a foot high, enough for
store-room under it, through trap doors, for such extra camp chairs as
are needed for audiences; with enough light, removable tables, and light
chairs for all uses to which the room might be put; a dead white wall
back of the platform, and such arrangements as would allow stereopticon
exhibitions; effective ventilation for a full room, even with the low
ceilings of a basement, and you have provision for many needs of a small
library. In larger buildings larger rooms may be provided, but always
such as could be used in various ways, at different hours of day or night.
Six square feet, Duff-Brown[369] and Champneys[370] consider enough
to allow for every auditor, including seats, gangways and platforms.
Marvin[371] says the same, but does not include platform.
For the use of audiences, while the rest of the library is working, there
should be a separate outside door or wide door into a corridor directly
communicating with the outside.
As such rooms are not so much used for reading, and are not high in the
walls, light fixtures need not be so numerous or powerful.
=Exhibitions.= Where funds are scant, I doubt whether it is best to
provide an art gallery for permanent or occasional exhibitions of
pictures, with the necessary disposition of lights. But in sizable
buildings, a large room can be spared for exhibitions directly or
indirectly connected with books, and such a room can be so fitted up as
to receive busts, statues and pictures presented to the library.
The center of the top floor of the main building offers an excellent
position for a large room for exhibition purposes, with daylight from the
roof. If suitable wall material and covers are provided as background
for pictures, with picture mouldings and with glass cases for the floor,
it is ready for showing specimens of printing or binding, rare books,
manuscripts, or prints and engravings.
As such an apartment would not be used for reading, it may be a common
corridor for many rooms opening around it, which are devoted partly
to exhibition, partly to consultation; for instance, art, music and
maps. Thus arranged, the top floor would segregate many functions which
elsewhere might interfere with the quiet of readers; and would provide
most agreeable conversation facilities.
=Pamphlets.= In many libraries gifts of pamphlets are received, which
cannot be separately catalogued at once. It is sometimes necessary to let
them accumulate until time is found to assort them, decide what to keep
and what to give away, what to bind and what to file in pamphlet boxes.
In small libraries they can be kept temporarily in closets. In large
libraries they often assume such bulk as will fill a room. Their stay in
this form is so temporary that the room assigned can be remote (in the
attic, for instance, of an old house), and very plain, not even finished,
except for such light as will be needed in sorting and such heating as
will keep workers comfortable.
Trestle tables, kitchen chairs, rough fixed wooden wall or floor
shelving, will answer all purposes, and save money for use elsewhere.
When the pamphlets are boxed or made ready for binding, they need not
return here, but may find their places elsewhere in the stack or special
rooms.
=Bound Serials.= Except a few serials which cover only special subjects,
these are usually kept together, for general magazines in use are
somewhat like encyclopædias. They are perhaps more readable, but are
not often used for reading; rather for reference through Poole and other
indexes. In any considerable collection they occupy so much shelf room
that they will soon fill a large room by themselves, and they are so kept
in many libraries. In the Library of Congress there are 123,805 volumes
of bound periodicals, 68,127 of them “general.”[372] If placed in the
stack, the basement is a good assignment for them, for various reasons.
If they are to have a room elsewhere it can be anywhere available;
with wooden floor cases (movable shelves) and plain walls and ceiling
so colored as to reflect light. As they are often heavy and awkward to
handle, and as readers may want to give them a first examination on the
spot, tables at one side of the room and carrels in the windows will
facilitate use.
Sets of society publications are often kept in the same room with these
serials.
=Bound Newspapers.= These require different storage. Small libraries
will have to keep what they get, as they keep atlases and other folios.
Growing libraries which have fireproof vaults will want to keep valuable
local files there. Larger libraries with many newspapers must settle just
how to keep them. It is not wise, even not possible, to set such heavy
folios on end; they must be kept flat on the shelves. At first, economy
may require using plain wooden shelves of special measurements, laying
two or three folios on their sides on each shelf. But if there is much
use of the papers, handling them in this way is difficult for readers
and injurious to the folios. As soon as money can be spared, proper
conservation and convenience require metallic roller shelves, which
specialists will furnish. Those in the Massachusetts State Library have
been found very satisfactory.
Champneys[373] advises “very rough and ready storage; special rooms with
open racks; magazines around the walls, newspapers in the center.”
=Special Collections.= “Large libraries are apt to receive gifts, to be
kept apart, either from direction or policy.”—(_Winsor._[374]) “A large
library never has enough rooms for them.”—(_Poole._[375]) Fletcher[376]
speaks of the numerous gifts to libraries to buy books in some special
department, giving a list of eighty-two subjects of such benefactions,
with the names of recipient libraries, summarized from Lane and Bolton’s
Harvard Bibliographical Contributions. The Library of Congress Report
of 1901[377] gives a list of over one hundred and fifty subjects for
separate rooms. Duff-Brown[378] mentions many English special collections.
Where the donations or bequests are generous, it is customary to set
aside separate rooms named for the donor, to books thus given. As
such libraries are not often for popular reading, but are used mainly
by special students, they may be assigned to upper floors. Gratitude
suggests that they be treated more ornately than the stack, or the
general reading rooms, and in such suites, indeed, there is opportunity
for an artistic architect to get noble effects without extravagant
expenditure. Wall shelving is appropriate, or even alcoves, for their
idea is like that of private or club libraries. Floor cases or special
stacks of less severe plainness than must be used elsewhere, are needed
as the collections become so large as to require close packing.
The local librarian can tell how many such rooms are needed for the
collections already set aside, but how many to anticipate in building
is hard for anyone to say. Rooms or floors may be reserved, and marked
“unassigned,” but experience shows that such spare spaces are usually
wanted for some growth before the new building is completed.
=Information.= In small libraries there is some attendant at the
general delivery desk who can answer miscellaneous questions. In larger
libraries, this duty is often assigned to one of the staff occupying a
separate desk near the delivery or the public catalog, or supervising the
reading room. In large libraries the Providence example is good, where a
counter on one side of the large delivery hall is set aside for this use,
with its special collection of reference books handy. Only in very large
buildings is a separate room necessary and even then it will generally
be better to use a small room near the vestibule, or a nook, or niche or
counter, wherever most convenient for the public to inquire and where it
interferes least with other uses.
=Conversation.= Strict quiet is so necessary in reading rooms, and
talking has to be discouraged so much in most of the building, that a
large library ought to have some place when staff or visitors can be
allowed a chance to talk when they must. Corridors are usually free from
restraint, but it is not often possible to find seats there, or secure
privacy. Vestibules and lobbies, however, are never needed for reading,
and even if used for exhibitions, can allow more or less comfortable
seats, so arranged in window nooks or recesses as to afford quiet corners
for conversation. The crossing of corridors, or room under a dome (if
such an architectural misfortune happens) can be utilized for this
purpose; indeed, any vacant spaces on the floor plans, such as abound
in many buildings, can be used for exhibition, decoration, information,
conversation, even perhaps for smoking,—any diversions outside of reading
which readers might like.
Miss Marvin[379] wants, even in small libraries, “a room in which
conversation may be allowed, for the use of committees and for adults who
meet at the library by appointment.”
“Conversation rooms,” says Champneys,[380] “may certainly be introduced
in large libraries, and their presence has the advantage of being a
continual reminder that conversation is not permitted in the reading
rooms. In small libraries ... the addition of a large room which can be
used for committee meetings, lectures, exhibitions, and a variety of
other purposes, cannot but be recommended.”
In other words, talk can be allowed in lecture or exhibition rooms.
Staff talk is well provided for in any library in the staff work and rest
rooms. Subdued talk about books might be allowed in reference rooms or
open access rooms. This, with freedom to talk in halls and vestibules,
may preclude necessity for a separate conversation room even in large
libraries.
=Unassigned.= Notwithstanding this list of special rooms required,
including most of the uses which can be foreseen, there is always
opportunity in a progressive library, for more space still to be used,
either in enlarging departments, or in establishing new ones. In
planning, the wise way is to include specific assignment of space or
rooms to all existing departments, and such others as seem to be on the
lines of probable development, but also to get more room still, to be
marked “unassigned.” It will be taken up sooner than anyone anticipates.
Indeed, as has been already said, there are many instances, where the
spare space left “unassigned” in planning has been claimed even before
the building is finished.
Instead of having lofty rooms, it is always best to divide the height
of a library into as many floors as possible, making none loftier
than actual use will require for light and ventilation. Never allow
superfluous height of rooms or stories for architectural effect, outside
or inside. Only by watching and limiting waste of space, in breadth,
length or height, can you get the maximum of opportunity out of money
you spend, or be able to get either all the departments you want or
unassigned room additional.
If basement or cellar is not all taken up with your assignment of
departments and rooms, underdrain and line the foundations carefully, and
provide for such future features as duplicates, public documents, or rows
of sliding cases for close packing of less used books.