extending round the four sides of the quadrangle with a vacant space in the middle. Each room is 50 feet wide, 15 feet high, and as long as convenient. Ten of these rooms will occupy the ground floor, so that, carrying the same construction four stories high, there will be forty different rooms in the whole structure. Each will be devoted to one large, or two or more small, classes of books. Alcoves and galleries are not to be permitted, but the books will be shelved on the walls or on double presses within reach. Every room will receive light on two sides, will be furnished with tables and chairs for readers, and provided with an attendant; no general reading-room will therefore be wanted. As a protection against fire, each room will be cut off by means of brick fire-walls extending to the roof, and access from one room to the other will be by a light iron corridor on the inside of the quadrangle. At the rear of the central building will be a lift for readers, and there will be staircases as well. In this way, on one story there will be about 25,250 square feet in the different wings, which, after deducting sufficient space for readers tables, &c., will give about 20,200 square feet for books. As each square foot will shelve 25 volumes, each story will hold 505,000 volumes, or on the four stories 2,020,000 volumes. One of the front rooms (to hold 67,500 volumes) might serve as a circulating library. Mr Poole estimates the cost of such a building in America at $530,000, or complete with shelving and furniture $640,000. (See Library Journal, vi. 69 sq.) In the same volume, p. 77 sq., is a description of the proposed plan for a new national library building at Washington. In this scheme the architect has in view the centralization towards a circular reading-room, good light, the possible expansion of the library for one hundred years, accessibility to all parts, economical administration, and division into different fire-proof compartments.
Heating.Of the various systems for heating libraries open fire-places have the best appearance, are very safe, and best convey heat; close stoves are the cheapest at first hand. Perhaps steam heating is the safest and most economical for large buildings. Unprotected gas jets are very injurious to the books. If gas be used at all, the sun-light system or the Benham light is the best means of conveying away the fumes and heated air. The electric light is used with great success at Liverpool and in the British Museum.
Shelves.Bookcases and Shelves, Furniture and Appliances.[1]—For presses and shelves, should wood be preferred, English oak or the cheaper deal (well seasoned) is the best material; or the presses may be made of iron and the shelves of slate or galvanized iron. At the British Museum the presses are all on one scale and all of the same model, the standards being of galvanized iron, with holes for brass pins, which are so shaped that the space is altered by merely turning them half-way round. The shelves are also of galvanized iron, covered with leather, on wooden frames; movable pads covered with leather protect the books at either end from being rubbed, and there are leather falls to keep the dust out. In the Radcliffe iron bookcase, invented by Dr Acland, the framework is of iron, and the shelves of wood, faced with leather. It is 7 feet high, and stands on any floor-space 48 inches by 18 inches; books are placed on both sides to the number of 500 octavos. Banner's revolving bookcase is useful for reference books; it is square, stands about 5 feet high, occupies no more space than a chair, and holds about 250 volumes. Economy of space is also a feature in Mr Virgo's bookcase, in the front of which is a door, itself shelved, which, on being swung round, discloses another row of shelves behind. The Eastlake portable bookcase can be taken to pieces, and is made to stand against a wall. In providing for shelf room it is usual to allow about 110 square feet of shelving to 1000 volumes; and in giving directions for presses and shelves it is well to have them planned upon a uniform scale. Perhaps the best supports for the shelves are Tonks's movable shelf-fittings, consisting of two rows of metal strips, with oblong perforations at intervals of 34 inch, in which are inserted small metal plates. The tops of reading tables, trays and barrows for carrying books, and such shelves as may be intended for heavy or choice books, should be padded. Very large volumes had better be kept flat in sliding trays. There is much diversity of opinion as to whether the fronts of the presses should be glazed or not, or whether they should be protected by wooden doors, curtains, or wire screens; many librarians object to glass doors as harbouring dry rot, and to any opaque screen as concealing the books.
Reading-room.The arrangement of the reading-room of the British Museum furnishes a good example of perfect supervision combined with every consideration for the comfort of readers. The tables are here arranged as the spokes of a wheel, with smaller square tables between them for large volumes. Each reader at the radiating tables has a separate place 4 feet 3 inches long, and is screened from his opposite neighbour by a division running along from one end to the other; in front is a hinged desk, with racks, inkstand, and a folding shelf for books. The framework of each table is of iron, forming channels by which air is conveyed through screens at the top of the longitudinal divisions. A tubular foot-rail affords facility for warming the feet in cold weather. The catalogue-stands (with presses of special bibliographies near them) are placed in two concentric circles around the enclosure of the superintendent, who can thus observe every reader in the room.
Supply.A speedy supply of books is ensured by the use of the automatic book-delivery contrived for the Harvard bookstore (of six stories) by Mr Justin Winsor. At the delivery-desk a keyboard shows the digits which combine the various shelf-marks; and the number of the book wanted, being struck upon it, is repeated at the floor on which the work is located, where it is sought for by an attendant and placed in a box attached to an endless belt, which carefully deposits it on a cushioned receptacle close by the delivery-desk.
Indicators.Many English lending libraries find that a great saving of time and trouble both to officials and readers is made by the use of the indicator for public reference. There are many varieties of this invention, but the main principle is a frame containing a series of small pigeon-holes, each numbered and referring by that number to a book; when a volume is lent out, the borrower's card, &c., are placed in the pigeon-hole and signify that it is absent. This roughly describes the Birmingham indicator (Mr Morgan's); in that of Mr Elliot, the title of the book is pasted against each pigeon hole; Mr W. H. K. Wright uses at Plymouth a system which serves as a catalogue and register of books lent as well; and Mr A. Cotgreave has improved the original idea by his indicator-book, a sort of ledger of the persons to whom each volume is lent, which is placed in the small pigeon-hole previously spoken of. The card-ledger of Mr G. Parr, used at the London Institution, is for the use of the librarians alone and not for the readers; it is applied to a borrowing system which permits several volumes to be taken away by the same person, and also acts as a register of borrowers.[2]
Minor appliances.For the purpose of stamping the name of the library on the books, &c., some persons prefer the embossing stamp, and some the ink stamp now very conveniently made in india-rubber. Props, either to screw upon the shelves, or made of thick blocks of wood, or of tin folded at right angles, are useful for preventing books falling about in a slovenly manner. Reading cases are necessary for periodicals and choice bindings; periodical cases are made conveniently of wood with strong leather backs. In order to keep the consecutive numbers of current periodicals and newspapers clean and in perfect order, some kind of temporary binder is required. The contents of the different shelves or recesses may be printed on labels made of leather or cloth. The "Van Everen" printed numbers and letters for the marks on the shelves and the backs of the books are to be purchased at a small cost.
Classification.Classification and Shelf-Arrangement.—The defect of most classificatory systems, especially of those which profess to be particularly philosophical and logical, is that they are better adapted for a systematic review of human knowledge than for the arrangement of a miscellaneous collection of books. A small library will not require so extensive a scheme as a larger one, and a popular library needs less minute classification than one for reference or for the use of more learned readers. Again, the classes which are best represented in the library, and its special or local collections, deserve more elaborate treatment than the classes in which it possesses but few volumes. The same system cannot invariably be used in all respects both for the shelves and for the catalogue, as a book can have but one position in the presses, but the title may appear under any number of headings in different parts of the catalogue. For these reasons, the natural order should be followed as far as possible. That is to say, the books should suggest their own classification, which should be made to harmonize with the requirements of the library, and the various classes should not be strained to fit some arbitrary method, however logical in theory. As the title of a book is often an unsafe guide to its contents, no one should attempt classification by the help of the title alone. In vol. ii. of Edwards's Memoirs of Libraries, he gives a number of schemes both on philosophical and on natural or practical principles; and Petzholdt, in his Bibliotheca, Bibliographica (Leipsic, 1866), has drawn up an account of no less than one hundred and seventeen different methods of classification, a number which could now be largely increased, as the practical ingenuity of American librarians alone has added many to the roll. Some of these schemes have been elaborated with great care, but, however interesting on account of the useful hints they may now and then supply, most of them are useless either for the catalogue or the shelves. All these are systems to classify the whole range of literature, but there are many classified bibliographies and other guides useful for the scientific arrangement of special departments.[3]
Books are usually arranged upon the shelves either in order of (1) their sizes, (2) authors' names, (3) subjects, or sometimes (4) of accession, or by a modification of two or more of these systems. The arrangement by subjects is that which displays
- ↑ Details in the works of Edwards and Petzholdt, the Library Journal, the publications of the Library Association, and of the Library Bureau (Boston, U.S.).
- ↑ See Oxford Trans. Lib. Assoc., 1879, p. 76; Manchester Trans., 1880, pp. 71 sq.
- ↑ For instance, in the class of fine arts may be consulted the Bibliographie des Beaux-Arts (Paris, 1874-8), which the late M. Ernest Vinet left incomplete; and botany may be classified with the help of Mr B. D. Jackson's Guide to the Literature of Botany (London, 1881). In the Memoirs of Libraries (ii. 922) may be found a useful classification for MSS., and further on an account of perhaps the best systems for prints and maps, being those of the Blbliothèque Nationale
