How to plan a library building for library work

EVOLUTION OF LIBRARY BUILDING

[For the first chapters of this book, I am largely indebted to an interesting and scholarly volume by John Willis Clark, entitled “The Care of Books,” published in the year 1901 at Cambridge, Eng. I am emboldened to quote from it by noting how much later books and cyclopedias rely on it as their chief authority, and I commend to all readers both text and illustrations of this fascinating work.]

The Dawn of History

No precedents of buildings or fixtures loom out of the farthest past. Archæological excavations have found relics of libraries in early ruins, libraries of baked clay tablets, evidently once housed in separate rooms on upper stories of palaces or temples. This literature must have seemed imperishable. There were no fading inks, no crumbling paper, no danger from moisture or worms. But an older foe, still threatening libraries, lurked in that brick era of literature. Fire, both worshiped and feared, was finally fatal. Fire following conquest attacked the oldest libraries and dropped them in shattered fragments into prehistoric cellars, to lie for centuries awaiting exhumation. But even as now resurrected, they tell no tales of their housing or shelving or circulation. It would seem hopeless to grope among these shards for lessons in library science. And yet Dr. Richard Garnett[1] deduced from an Assyrian hexagonal book tablet the idea of hexagonal bookcases for the British Museum.

Ancient History

In the early days of Egypt, Greece, and Rome, libraries of papyrus and parchment rolls, stored on shelves, in pigeon-holes and in chests, were collected, at first by sovereigns, then by nobles, then by scholars. For centuries they occupied rooms in palaces and in temples. These rooms were only places of storage. Other rooms, or oftener colonnades, served for reading. The distinction between book rooms and reading rooms thus appeared at an early date.

The first mention of a separate library building is made in Egypt in the time of Ptolemy Philadelphus, the third century B.C. Two centuries before, Pisistratus, in Greece, had established a public library, whether or no in a house of its own is not noted. About 40 B.C., Asinius Pollio seems to have built the first library building in Rome. Augustus soon built two more, and thereafter public libraries and private library rooms abounded. In the fourth century A.D. there were twenty-eight “public libraries” in Rome. Although these were undoubtedly, while “public,” used mainly by scholars, having few of the functions which so highly diversify and differentiate modern public libraries, their buildings must have begun to assume some common arrangement which would tend to constitute a type. I am unable to reproduce, however, any clear picture of the architecture of these first buildings.

As to fixtures, Mr. Clark sums up a chapter:[2] “Unfortunately no enthusiast of those distant times has handed down to us a complete description of his library, and we are obliged to take a detail from one account, and a detail from another, and so piece the picture together for ourselves. What I may call the pigeonhole system, suitable for rolls only, was replaced by presses which could contain rolls if required, but were especially designed for codices (the first phase of parchment, in the modern book form). These presses were sometimes plain, sometimes richly ornamented. The floor, the walls, the roof were also decorated. As the books were hidden in the presses, the library note was struck by numerous inscriptions, and by busts and portraits of authors.”

This Roman conception of a library prevailed during the dark ages and has survived to our own time in its most sumptuous form, embodied in the Vatican library, whose interior has so often been represented in photographs and engravings.

With the close of the western empire, in A.D. 476, the ancient era of libraries may be said also to close without any lessons to us as to building.

Mediæval History

Thus far libraries were gathered and cared for by monarchs, princes, or prominent citizens. With the growth of Christianity literature fell to the care of the ecclesiastics. Their earliest collection, of which record remains, was shelved in the apse of a church. About A.D. 300, monastic communities began to cherish church literature. Existing records all indicate that cloisters were the first Christian libraries, perhaps because all the monks could assemble there. What few precious manuscript volumes the laborious brothers had fashioned, with others given or bought, were stored on shelves or in “presses” on the inner walls. The readers either took the books to their cells, or read them by the light of the windows in the outer wall. There were the reading room, the book room, and the lending room, all in one long, well-lighted cloister. Later, as more manuscripts accumulated, they were stored at first in niches in the wall, then in adjacent closets or small windowless rooms. Readers still studied by the best light. To follow Clark’s quotation:[3] “On the north syde of the Cloister (at Durham) in every window were ... Pews or Carrels where every Monk studyed upon his books. And in every Carrel was a deske to lye their bookes on.”

Elsewhere it is explained that each window was in three parts, with a carrel from one stanchell of the window to another.

This use of windows suggested to me a new convenience for research in our modern “stack,” which is described in a later chapter as the “stack carrel.”[4]

The growth of libraries slowly followed the development of monastic orders. The systematic care and use of books began with the precepts of S. Benedict in the sixth century, followed by similar rules in other brotherhoods. At the same time secular libraries and library buildings were devastated by the barbarians, while the Arabs, who developed large libraries, appeared to have housed them in mosques, so that library building science slumbered through the Dark Ages.

In the sixth and seventh centuries learning followed the first steps of Christianity into the British Isles. The earliest English “library movement” began in the monasteries of Ireland and Great Britain.

From that era onward, libraries all over Christianized Europe grew with the prosperity of religious brotherhoods. Of progress toward building, however, there is little record until the Cistercians moved theirs from the cloisters to other rooms in their monasteries, although some use of cloisters elsewhere lingered until the beginning of the seventeenth century. These rooms were at first directly over the cloisters, where alcoves first appeared, on the window side only. Still later libraries were assigned to the upper stories of separate buildings, the first put to this use since the time of the Cæsars in Rome.

These first mediæval libraries, of which several pictures are preserved, send to us the precedent of ample and aptly applied daylight admitted through long windows directly into each alcove. The exteriors remind us of our stack rooms. This arrangement of library rooms passed by imitation in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries from the monasteries to the colleges, and still survives in the older libraries of Oxford and Cambridge,—for instance, Merton College, a long, narrow room with bookcases between the windows, at right angles with the walls, forming well-lighted alcoves.

All of the earliest library rooms were long and narrow. Clark has preserved the measurements of several thus:—

A.D. 1289. Zutphen (Holland): A solid building separated from others (in case of fire): 120 feet long, 36 feet broad: 19 uniform windows east and west, “that plenty of daylight might fall upon the desks and fill the whole length and breadth of the library.”

A.D. 1422. The Franciscan House in London, “Christ’s Hospital” (the first building in England built expressly for a library?) founded by Sir Richard Whittington; 129 feet long by 31 feet broad, with 28 desks and 28 double settles.

A.D. 1508. At Canterbury: the library over the Prior’s Chapel was 60 feet long by 20 feet broad, and had 16 bookcases, each 4 shelves high.

A.D. 1517. At Clairvaux: in the cloister are 14 studies, where the monks write and study, and over it the new library, 180 feet long by 17 wide (probably this narrowness followed the shape of the cloister) with 48 benches, “excellently lighted on both sides by large windows.”

It will be noted that these bookshelves were about four feet “on centers,” and that great emphasis was laid on ample daylight.

From the thirteenth century comes this warning for us—“the press in which books are kept ought to be lined inside with wood that the damp of the walls may not moisten or stain them,” which is singularly like a caution in a recent American manual against leaving unpainted brick walls at the back of wall cases.

It seems singular that wall shelving, which was certainly used in Assyrian libraries and in the classical period, disappears in the monkish era and yields to “presses” or closed bookcases; to appear as a new device in the library of the Escorial in Spain in the year 1583. Sir Christopher Wren thought so much of this feature that he followed it in Trinity College (Cambridge) library in 1695, saying, “The disposition of the shelves both along the walls and breaking out from the walls must prove very convenient and gracefull: A little square table in each cell with two seats.”

The fifteenth century had been a library era throughout. In the sixteenth came the Reformation, which swept away “papistical” libraries. More than eight hundred libraries of monastic orders, in England alone, were dispersed or destroyed by this iconoclastic whirlwind. In 1540 the only libraries left were at Oxford and Cambridge and in the cathedrals. But at the same time, the invention and rapid spread of printing had superseded the slow processes of making manuscript books, and had opened a new life for libraries. The first library built under these new conditions was that of St. John’s College, which brought over from the monastic and early college era the alcove arrangement.

The renaissance of wall shelving spread rapidly. Compared with the chaining of books to the shelves, which it superseded, it was an open-access reform. To quote Cardinal Mazarin’s library motto, “Publice patere voluit.” It was quickly followed in France, but more slowly in England. In 1610 this form of shelving with a gallery was adopted in the Bodleian Library at Oxford (see illustration on p. 275 of Clark), the progenitor of our first distinctive American library interiors, now discredited and almost abandoned.

Modern History

From the beginning of the seventeenth to the middle of the nineteenth century, there is little to chronicle in the evolution of the library building. What libraries were built or altered followed either the monastic-collegiate alcove style, or the Escorial-Trinity wall shelving and gallery, or both. The best illustrations of libraries of this era are still extant at Oxford and Cambridge. A view of what he calls the oldest example of the combination of high wall shelving broken by a gallery, with the older fashion of alcoves, as they still exist at the Bodleian Library at Oxford, is shown by Duff-Brown on p. 2. A fine specimen may be seen at Trinity College, Dublin, interesting because of two modern attempts to burst the confines of old walls: first, as shown in the traces of sliding cases long antedating those of the British Museum; second, in the two-story wooden stack recently installed and already outgrown, in the cloisters below the library, which were originally open but were glassed in to protect the stack. (See illustrations, reproducing photographs taken by the author.[5])

The first appearance of the floor case, the precedent of the modern stack, appears in the library of the University of Leyden in 1610, of which a large illustration is given by Clark[6] and a smaller one by Fletcher.[7] Here is seen the utilization of the whole floor of a book room through parallel cases evidently open to access, although the books are all chained. The library is lofty and the shelves lighted not directly from stack-windows, but by chapel windows high in the wall, which appear to fill the room with ample diffused light. Some of the “broad-brims” pacing the floor may have been our Pilgrim ancestors, who, for the ten years subsequent to the date of this picture, were living at Leyden and frequenting the University.

The Radcliffe Library at Oxford, designed in 1740, seems to be the earliest example in England of a circular reading room lighted from the roof. This is said to have been suggested by the central reading room of the old Wolfenbüttel Library, built about 1710.

“The first architect,” says Duff-Brown[8] “to plan a library which in any way meets the modern requirements of giving ample accommodation was Leopoldo della Santa, who in 1816 published in Florence a quarto pamphlet, which is an attempt to construct a library building entirely from an utilitarian point of view.” The plan, which Brown reproduces, suggests Dr. Poole’s plan which was embodied in the Newberry Library of Chicago.

In 1835 Delassert proposed for the French National Library a circular plan of building, which perhaps suggested the present reading room of the British Museum. In 1885 Magnusson proposed an unending whorl as a good form for a growing library.[9]

While English libraries, and those of the continent, were developing these phases of old types, separate library buildings began to appear in America. The first one actually erected for library occupation still remains in use,—the Redwood Library of Newport, R. I., built in 1750. The main room is a hall 37 × 26 feet, 19 feet high, with two lean-to rooms at the sides. A massive portico gives an impressive front, but cannot be said to found a distinctive library style.

Our early proprietary associations and parochial libraries were stored in public buildings, or in buildings with no peculiar features. The school district libraries established by the state of New York in 1835, and similar libraries founded soon after in other states, seem to have been stored in schoolhouses, though intended for public use. The state libraries, first established as early as 1773, were deposited in the State Houses. The Young Men’s libraries of the early period were kept in rented rooms, or at best in rented houses. No special phase of library buildings was developed until about the middle of the nineteenth century, when colleges began to build. Gore Hall at Harvard (1841) was modeled after King’s College Chapel at Cambridge, Eng., and was even at that date said to be “ill adapted to the purposes of a library.” The University of North Carolina “erected” in 1850 a library in the form of a Greek temple, with hall 84 × 32 feet, 20 feet high. These essays at importing styles certainly developed no models worth imitation, but nevertheless they were imitated.

Our Own Era

Our own “library age” may be said to date from the middle of the nineteenth century. The parliamentary investigations which led to the first English library act in 1850, and the organization of the Boston Public Library with us in 1852, mark the beginning of the modern library movement. I will not try to trace the gradual evolution of library buildings abroad. I do not know enough about it to handle the subject well. I find, however, in Edwards’ Free Town Libraries,[10] London, 1869, a prototype of our own “Points of Agreement among Librarians on Library Architecture.” But as late as 1907 an English architect (Champneys[11]) says that “the examples of what a library building should not be are out of all proportion to those which are worthy to be followed.”

In America, building developed with the library movement, at first getting rather ahead of it. Indeed, there were few experienced librarians to direct it, and even these were mainly the old style conservators and bibliographers. The topic of building does not appear in the discussions of the library conference in 1853. The architects had to develop a precedent. The first distinctive type to appear was adopted in the Astor Library in New York (1853) and followed in the Boston Public Library dedicated in 1858. The exterior of the building had no peculiar features, but the interior was distinctly a type to be outgrown. The main room was a lofty hall, surrounded by galleried alcoves reaching to the ceiling, storing the books, while the readers occupied the floor, into the middle of which the main stairway arose among the tables. This impressive but wasteful interior was copied in large cities throughout the country, and was referred to in contemporaneous discussion as the “conventional style.” As it was tested in operation, and as its defects both for storage and administration became evident, the library profession, then getting together, unanimously condemned it. At the Cincinnati Conference of 1882, the A. L. A. resolved that “the time has come for a radical modification of the prevailing style of library building, and the adoption of a style better suited to economy and practical utility.”[12] At first there was no agreement on a successor. Richardson, the great architect, developed a library type which was severely criticized by librarians.[13] But in the rapid growth of libraries, the problem of close, economical and accessible storage of books became acute. How could these accumulating masses be stored and at the same time used? The solution came in the “stack,” at first fiercely fought by conservative librarians, but now so universally accepted as to form the distinctive feature of modern American library architecture.

In 1876 an impetus was given to library science, including building, by the government report of that year on libraries, and also by the formation of the American Library Association. The annual meetings of the Association, its discussions, the studies and reports of its committees, the formation and activity of state, city, and other local library associations, the establishment of library schools, have all tended to build up a consensus of opinion on important topics which has been recorded in the library journals, and has slowly but surely impressed itself on architects, on the public, and, not least of all, upon building committees.

A special impetus toward union among librarians was the controversy which arose over the building of the second Boston Public Library. The importation of its exterior design from Paris, and the attempt to build up an interior for it without any consultation with librarians either local or national, seemed such a marked snub to the profession just becoming conscious of power and unity, that it aroused renewed attention to the proper planning of library buildings. A trustee of the library having stated in public that “it was no use to consult librarians, for no two of them agreed on any point,” the American Library Association endorsed unanimously at its next conference the paper on “Points of Agreement on Library Architecture,” which has since been the accepted basis of all satisfactory plans. A series of nine letters to the Boston Herald, criticizing the building and the library management (republished in 17 L. J.), vindicated the library side of the controversy and brought about a change of management. And yet this façade of the library Ste. Geneviève in Paris has been repeated “with monotonous poverty of invention,” says an architect, in the mistaken belief that a building once labeled a library is a praiseworthy model to be copied.

Another spur to library building during these last years has been the Carnegie gifts. Their number and wide range, furnishing at the same time an incentive and a climax to both private beneficence and public liberality, finally convinced architects that in library buildings of all sizes and various purposes they had a theme worthy of their best work and highest genius. Mr. Carnegie’s first Public Free Library was founded in 1889, less than quarter of a century ago. Up to March, 1911, he had given funds for 2062 public and 115 college libraries.

Forecasting the Years

This rapid sketch has gleaned the records to show how the housing of libraries has grown through centuries toward a rapid development in our own age.

The Present. In looking back through the last sixty years, indeed through the last quarter-century, we contrast twenty-five years ago with the present time. We cannot fail to be satisfied with the advance in rational building. We know better what we want; we are called more into consultation with our trustees as to what is wanted; our opinions are listened to with respect by the architects. If every building is not as perfect as we could wish, how much larger is the proportion of serviceable libraries; how much smaller is the number of stately failures? Turn over the plans in Koch’s portfolio of Carnegie Libraries. See how much better is the average interior, how much more satisfactory the fenestration and proportions of the average exterior. In the “Points of Agreement among Librarians,” adopted as our chart in 1891, it was stated that “very few library buildings erected during the previous ten years conformed to all, and some of them conformed to none, of these axiomatic requirements.” Could we not say now that nearly all library buildings erected since 1891 conformed to most and many to all of what have seemed to us the requisites of construction?

The Next Quarter Century. What has the future in store for us?

In the first place, a swarm of buildings. Private beneficence, already aroused and stimulated, will continue for at least another generation even after Carnegie shall pass on to his reward. Public opinion in a large part of our country has come to believe in the library as it believes in the schools. Small libraries will follow railway stations into all growing and ambitious towns. Communities now inert will awake and, as instruments for good, demand libraries to stand beside their churches. The buildings of today will soon burst their bounds in the flood of library progress, and require enlargement or replacement.

The colleges will more and more recognize the relations of libraries to instruction and the relations of the building to the library. Large cities will experiment with large library buildings as the crown of their educational system.

Library science also will still progress ahead of its building problems. Where its developments are to end no one can foretell. What Bostwick[14] defines as the chief modern features of American libraries—freedom of access, work with children, co-operation with schools, branch libraries of all kinds, all such expanding activities—are sure to spread still further on the lines of social science, industrial education and good citizenship, reaching out, as Mr. Dana says, for the mechanic and the artisan.

In building there will be serious problems to be worked out. To college libraries will come the great question of the economical and effective distribution of department libraries. In all large libraries the problem presses of how to store closely and still handily the masses of accumulating books; underground stacks, central artificially lighted book rooms, sliding presses, mechanical carriers. In all large centers are impending the enormous warehouses[15] of the future for dead or moribund books, literary tombs or morgues.

I see another question impending,—Cannot modern methods of steel construction help out the city problems of light and congestion? Is the massive masonry, which has made such dungeons out of most of our public buildings, necessary for libraries? In view of the universal opinion among librarians that every building will have to be changed, enlarged, or replaced within a short generation, in view of the fact that thick walls kill the light needed for readers, that masonry partitions hinder change, may not the structure that makes our modern stores and office buildings so light, cheerful and airy, be in some satisfactory way applied to our large libraries?

Of one thing we may be fairly sure. Intelligent alliance and the friendship of mutual respect between librarians and architects will so carry conviction to trustees that our buildings of the near future will seem workable to librarians, satisfactory to architects, and noble to the public.

For the remoter future our successors must plan. We do our share if we pass on to them bettered methods and finer buildings.

Firmitas, Utilitas, Venustas

The motto I have chosen for this work is the maxim embodying three essential qualities in building, as given by Vitruvius, the leading authority in his profession, in his work “De Architectura Libri Decem” issued over nineteen hundred years ago at the highwater tide of the classical style of architecture which some of his modern successors have copied too blindly, forgetting that the conditions of our firmitas and utilitas have essentially changed and modified the twentieth century venustas.

Even at that age, note the order in which the author arranged his attributes. Venustas last, even in that era of magnificent architecture.

A fair translation of the motto would be stability, usefulness, loveliness.

The second essential is the one as to which the librarian is peculiarly qualified to speak, and of which he is the especial champion, but he is greatly interested in the two other attributes for which the architect is more directly responsible, and perhaps the librarian can help even here by suggestions.

He can certainly serve throughout the processes of planning, in keeping, always and everywhere, all concerned to the spirit of this classical architectural precept so well rendered by the homely Anglo-Saxon adage, “Use before beauty.”

Firmitas

In the first place safety and strength of construction must be essentials to everyone of the interested parties, and must be planned for and closely watched by the architect.

I was first attracted to the apothegm of Vitruvius by the second item, but on dwelling on the subject I am not so sure that the first is not quite as apposite. In considering the Latin synonyms, I noticed that firmitas had been used rather than soliditas, and on pondering definitions in a lexicon, I found this under the head of firmitas—“the quality of the firmus;” and under the head of firmus—“strong, proper, suitable, fit.” Thus Vitruvius builded better than he knew for modern library building, and voted from the golden age of classic architecture two to one against venustas in a library building.

The librarian should constantly bear in mind first cost, and cost of care as well as of administration. There may be a choice between equally strong materials and methods of construction. There may be choice as to use of walls, floors, windows, partitions, lights, heaters. In all these points affecting construction his watchfulness should be constant and his practical advice should have weight. He must warn also against unnecessary heaviness and rigidity, and any methods which would hamper changes or needlessly outlast the probable life of the building. Massiveness is not now essential to strength, and in a library building is a detriment.

Utilitas

Here naturally the librarian must have pre-eminence. While the architect may well correct inexperience in construction, and may chasten poor taste in ornament, he and the building committee ought to defer to the librarian on all questions of administration, and only oppose or override him where he is clearly unripe, “faddy” or wrong. Certainly, in planning, the architect should try patiently to meet all needs of storage or service as presented by competent authority. Here is the core of the problem: by the test of usefulness this particular building is to be judged a success or a failure.

But the librarian should be sure rather than obstinate. While he must be clear what he wants to do, he should remember that there may be several ways of doing it. If he is really an intelligent as well as an expert librarian, he will often find in the architect a helpful inventiveness to which he should yield an equal adaptability. Some of the best library ideas are an architect’s development of a librarian’s idea;—witness the stack.

As to a union of use and beauty, I would quote the Alumni Committee on the Harvard University Library:[16] “Not only should the new library be as perfect in plan and equipment as a wise and generous expenditure can make it, it should also, avoiding any display of costliness, possess a beauty and dignity of its own, both within and without, that it may be a constant source of pleasure and inspiration to all who use it.”

Venustas

I was first tempted to translate epigrammatically strength, use, show, but show seemed just the effect to avoid, although the venus suggested it. The lexicon defines the meaning of venustas as loveliness, beauty, charm; and I take it beauty—plain beauty—is what we most wish to see in a library building.

“While it is undeniable that the more directly utilitarian requirements should take precedence, æsthetic treatment of a library building is no unimportant matter. A building which is a work of art is a powerful educational factor; a dignified structure commands respect; an attractive exterior and pleasing interior attract toward use of the building.”—Champneys.[17]

The eleventh edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica, in its article on Architecture, says this: “The end of building is convenience, the end of architecture as an art is beauty, grandeur, unity, power.” “The most important qualities (it continues) are size, harmony, proportion, symmetry, ornament and color.” Of these, size will depend mainly on the scope of work of the library, and on the funds available. Ornament in a library is a questionable beauty. The other qualities are possible even in a small and inexpensive building. For harmony and proportion, the architect may well be allowed choice at the outset as to what general form of building would best suit the site, and accord with the environment.

I should add to the elements of beauty, material. In this the next choice after cost, should be appropriateness and possibilities of dignity and quiet beauty. Nor need the material be expensive. Expense does not always promote beauty; it often ensures ugliness. A good rule to follow is to take “the wine of the country,” as it were,—the stone of the state. Not necessarily stone, either. Unless in large libraries, why is not wood good exterior material, if the life of the building is likely to be only twenty-five years? Wood is a fine material for a small building, lending itself to easy alterations or repair, and capable of great beauty. Whoever has had the fortune to sail on Christiania Fjord or Puget Sound has brought away, as pictures of loveliness, a memory of the beautiful villas of those forest-rich shores. Even re-enforced concrete, with its vast possibilities of ugliness, has also possibilities of beauty: witness the business section of Leipsic, and the residence quarter of Hamburg. The different sections of America have various handsome and durable building stones. And every section is near enough to clay to have good brick,—by far the most sensible, and in good hands the most beautiful material for library building. Did you ever see the buildings of Harvard University? If so, you retain now in memory, not so much the gray granite of the library, as the soft, homely, beautiful, wholly satisfactory atmosphere of old Holworthy. If you can escape the bilious brick which just at present is considered æsthetic, and the other brick which exudes soda-blotches, and get the good old-fashioned kind which mellows to a ripe old age, you will please a large constituency.

As to marbles, if they are cheaper than stone or brick, all right. But if additional expense for marble will cripple or dwarf a single feature of convenience or service, I would fight it to my last breath. Perhaps I am prejudiced, by an early experience. Being in Washington some years ago, I wandered into the new Navy Department Building. Asking to see the library I was shown to a lofty, bare room paneled in marble from floor to ceiling. “Here you see specimens of all the marbles of the world, brought by vessels of the navy direct from their quarries,” said the custodian. “But where are the books to be?” I queried. “Oh, the books!” he answered, rather contemptuously; “in here;” and he showed me two slices of space, just the length of the main room, shelved on both sides thirty feet high, lighted only by a tier of single windows at one end, and each space only eight feet wide. Since then, marbles outside or inside a library have been associated for me with vulgar show, not with appropriate venustas.

As to the quality of grandeur, I am not sure that it is even appropriate to a library. Is it not some such effect that many architects have aimed at in our bad part? It seems to me that Beresford Pite was right in saying:[18] “A regard for symmetrical purpose, a largeness of proportion and form, simplicity of detail, and great restraint and refinement of moulding and ornament, are qualities characteristic of a library, internally as well as externally.... Libraries of all buildings should be freed from the trammels of a merely archæological architecture. The architect of the present day is apt to rely too simply on precedent.” Yes, witness some of our Greek temple libraries in new America.

After all, the material to be used on the exterior is largely controlled by the limit of funds and is a matter for the architect rather than the librarian, unless he thinks the cost of the outside will stunt his accommodations.

Is There an Irrepressible Conflict?

In the future must we face a continuous conflict between the architect and the librarian? Is it true, as was once said, that the architect is the natural enemy of the librarian? Was Dr. Garnett right when he said,[19] “Hence a continual conflict between the architect who desires a handsome elevation and the librarian who aims at practical convenience?” Yes and no. No, certainly, if we mean the word enemy in any but a Pickwickian sense. No, certainly, if we expect a bitter fight and bad feeling. But if we substitute the word “contest” for “conflict,” if we look forward to eager but friendly struggles, like athletic contests between colleges,—yes, certainly yes. If both sides are striving for the fine aims of Vitruvius, which I have taken as a motto—Firmitas, Utilitas, Venustas—there will be nothing but the amity and mutual respect of brotherly rivals. There will not at first be full accord as to any one of the three points. Sound construction, yes: but must that necessarily be the construction of precedent? Use, yes: but just the phases of use as seen by the untrained eyes of that particular librarian? Beauty, yes: but exactly the beauty of any conventional style?

“I do not believe there is a conflict between the librarian or the committee, and the architect. There is a common meeting ground.”—E. B. Green.[20]

“The hostility between beauty and utility is often more apparent than real.”—Patton.[21]

There will inevitably be differences, at first, even among consulting librarians. Get together! Let librarian and architect compare views until they find some way of satisfying both, then present a united front to the building committee. If, however, they cannot agree, formulate their difference clearly and present it to the committee for decision, as business trustees often present doubts as to their trust, in a friendly suit before a court.

But remember that it is a contest, and have the library side presented as ably as the architect’s.

Library Science

Modern library science is yet in its adolescence as compared with architecture, but it is a robust youth. It already knows definitely what it wants, and what it does not want. For guidance, it has a copious literature of first instance, scattered through various pamphlets and four score back volumes of periodicals. It is beginning to have a literature of last instance, in book form, like Duff-Brown in England and Bostwick in America; and even a formal literature about library buildings, Burgoyne and Champneys abroad, and now this volume here. It is very satisfactory to see how these three-thousand-miles-apart authorities agree. There are still differences of method to provide material for debate at the next international conference, but we are close enough together on principles, at least, to convince any doubting Thomas that there is a library science to govern library building.

And in building there is the greatest need of further developing library science. As Fletcher says in his preface:[22]—

“One need not visit all the libraries of the country to become painfully convinced that want of adaptation to use is by no means infrequent. With regard to buildings, Lord Bacon’s judgment seems very safe: ‘Houses are built to live in, and not to Looke on: Therefore let Use bee preferred before Uniformitie.’ If this is true for houses, then a fortiori for libraries.”

But the main reliance of architects and building committees should be the living interpreter, the experienced librarian who can expound, apply and extend the written word. Here is embodied library science face to face with us, to supplement every chapter of this book by the latest developments; to explain apparent anomalies and inconsistencies; to differentiate essentials from non-essentials; to concede where concession is possible; and to maintain with conviction the requirements to which the architecture of tradition must yield.

Nor are the books closed with this volume. As a writer in “The Dial,”[23] says: “The history of Library Science is not closed. There remain an indefinite number of interesting chapters still to be written which are not unlikely to prove even more significant than any that have gone before.”

Architecture

Architecture, on the other hand, is a very mature science. It is ages old, with a voluminous literature from Vitruvius down, with many learned and skillful votaries, who have thorough technical education. Indeed, to a layman it seems a bit too much fettered by education and precedent. But it has to tackle all sorts of jobs from temples to stables, and it is very much alive to modern progress. Witness its triumphs with “skyscrapers,” steel construction, and re-enforced concrete. It has an almost encyclopedic training and can deal with all problems of itself, if required. But for perfect work it needs a very clear and thorough statement of the technical requirements of each problem. Give him full information, and any good architect can do good work.

The Century Dictionary defines Architecture as combining the requirements of (1) use and convenience, (2) constructive necessity and fitness, (3) artistic excellence.

For buildings that are more practical than decorative, the first is paramount, and it is on this point alone that the librarian is qualified to speak with authority. The other two-thirds—the larger part of the building—he must leave to the architect. If all three points are combined in the result, the architect should have two-thirds of the credit, and if his library advice has been defective, he should have the whole. And what does he get in return, on a small building, except kudos? Did you ever think how small a money reward he gets? A lawyer or a surgeon may take, in a difficult case, all the client or patient has in the bank or can borrow. But an architect, no matter how difficult his problem, and how much he has to work it out for himself with incompetent help, is limited to a percentage suggested beforehand by a schedule of fees. For instance, Miss Marvin gives views and plans of a $10,000 library at Darlington, Wis., built by Claude & Starck of Madison, which she says meets perfectly the needs of a small library with one slight exception. She reports the architects’ fee to have been $379.85. For this they had to spend time and thought on the plans, studying library science as applied to that particular problem. They had to have many sittings with librarian and board. They had to pay draftsmen for elaborating several sets of plans. They had to prepare specifications, invite, examine and allot contracts, watch all the material that was put in and all the work that was done. Were they overpaid? In fact, were they fully paid for their work unless they acted as their own draftsmen? All they really got out of the job was the satisfaction of good work done, and a certain amount of reputation, which I am glad to help by this mention.

When an architect does such good work as this, as a result of giving proper consideration to the real needs of the library, he surely ought to have credit for it, and all librarians who know about it ought to give him thanks and wide public praise.

Where does the Library Come In?

Architecture, as I have said, deals with a wide range of subjects, from the pure idealism of tombs, monuments and memorial arches, to the pure realism of twentieth century workshops. The former are, so to speak, all outside, and proper themes for competition. The latter are nearly all inside, to be worked out by careful and special study of their uses.

Where, in this wide circle, does the library come in? All librarians will claim, and most architects will allow, that it lies very near the workshop; as near it surely as the schoolhouse. It certainly needs careful study and adequate expert advice.

The tombs, monuments, and memorial arches, are rich subjects for architectural taste and ornament,—for venustas.

For workshops, for schoolhouses, ornament is inappropriate. Good taste, shown in proportion, lines, color, material, is still demanded, but they belong clearly to the domain of utilitas.

The library comes, beyond doubt, in the latter group. There is a vast range of buildings between, more or less proper subjects of decoration and ornamentation.

But the library should incontestably be assigned to the utilitarian extreme.

What Conflict is Possible?

Are there any points where architect and librarian may clash? There will be many points of course where they will differ at first, and have to get together through argument. But are there any influences toward a deadlock?

On the part of the librarian there should be no prejudice. If he be immature, or conceited and opinionated, and only half informed, he may not deserve to win in such a contest of ideas, but his bias at all events would be professional, not selfish.

On the side of the architect, however, might there not be some bias? In the first place, professional bias toward some style he has got his mind set on? He may be too willing to sacrifice utilitas to venustas on this account. During the Boston Public Library discussion, an architect wrote to a daily journal: “Library buildings should be treated as monuments, not as workshops, and must be made beautiful even at the sacrifice of utility.” But if any architect or any trustees now have such views, the building committee is to blame if it employs him, or even admits him to a competition.

In two points, however, selfish considerations might bias an architect, if he were poor or ambitious. In the first place his remuneration is by percentage on the total cost. The more his client spends, the more pay he gets. This situation conflicts with economy. In the second place, his reputation and his future prosperity depend not so much on librarians as upon the general public, which admires size, costly material, decoration, show. Witness the constant reappearance in magazines of the worst libraries as examples of good architecture. Marching with his own artistic temperament, this conflicts with economy, utility, and simplicity.

As to the danger of such a conflict, I personally have little fear, if some care is taken in selecting the architect. I know many of the profession. All of them I believe would spurn the first temptation, as they would an open bribe. Some of them might be influenced insidiously by the second, under the guise of Pure Art. But if shown by an expert librarian, worthy of belief, that any architectural beauty would tend to cripple the work of the library, I believe that every one would yield his views promptly and willingly. Indeed, on the first point, I have known an architect to sacrifice his own interest knowingly.

See anecdote at the bottom of p. 131 proximo.

What Contest is Likely?

Putting aside any question of such serious conflicts, are there any differences to be expected? Why not leave it all to the architect, with what information he can get from the local librarian? There are a number of points to be settled both in the interior plan and about the exterior as affected by the interior. The question, for instance, of the best size and collocation of rooms, and height of stories, for effective and economical administration. The questions of shelving and furniture, always differing somewhat from previous problems. Such questions as ornamental fireplaces and massive furniture, and ornamental as against effective lighting. Questions as to the irreducible minimum of entrance halls, passages and stairways. All these on the interior:—on the exterior, the height of the basement, the height of the front steps, the height of stories and the arrangement and shape of windows, expense of material and decoration as against more space and better facilities inside. All these questions are open to honest difference of opinion between a librarian and an architect whose motives and ends are the same. And the architect with preconceived ideas, and a bias toward architectural effect, ought to have library views explained to him by some librarian who is his equal in experience, education, ability and personality.

The conditions have bettered in recent years. “The librarian’s ideal and the architect’s ideal, years ago wide apart, are today coming closer together. Full comparison of views may lead to agreement.”—Hamlin (architect).[24]

Where Lies the Blame?

Where should the blame of bad buildings rest? Sometimes, certainly, on the architect. Perhaps he is incompetent, perhaps he has been wilful. Champneys (an architect himself) says of the English situation: “In many cases architects have wilfully sacrificed utility to æsthetic considerations.”[25] And so often in America. I have recently heard of an architect chosen to build a library with only a limited fund available, calling for twenty-five per cent more money for more expensive material, before he had begun to lay out the interior. Here the blame should rest on the architect, unless he acted under positive orders from the committee.

But the architect is not always to blame. Sometimes the librarian has not been strong enough or has not had enough experience to guide him aright. Sometimes a “faddy” librarian has led him to adopt features which the profession generally disapprove. More often the building committee have left the problem to the architect without proper instructions, or have actually instructed him to disregard librarians’ advice, and to make the building showy at any sacrifice of use.

The board of library trustees, not the librarian, is the architect’s client, whose instructions he must obey. In many cases the parties in fault have been the trustees, or ultimately the public. “The worst possible combination is that of board and architect, the librarian being ignored.”—Bostwick.[26]

So do not blame the architect for a poor, clumsy, extravagant building, unless you can surely place the responsibility on him.

Grades and Classes

Grades. In dealing with libraries, it will be well to grade them by size, or rather by cost, which will accomplish the same end; and to arrange them by scope.

Any grades must be arbitrary, but as some attempts at distinguishing small from large have already been made, rather loosely, I will try to group them as I think they can be treated. Thus:—

• Minimum, those costing under $5,000.
• Small, those costing from $5,000 to $20,000.
• Moderate, those costing from $20,000 to $75,000.
• Medium, those costing from $75,000 to $300,000.
• Large, those costing from $300,000 to $1,000,000.
• Very large, those costing more than $1,000,000.

Miss Marvin[27] seems to hint at $3,000 as the limit for very small libraries, but I note that $5,000 is a more frequent limit for Carnegie gifts, so I follow that guide.

The next grade I limit to $20,000, on a suggestion from Miss Marvin[28] that it is unwise to attempt a two-story building for less than that sum. The third limit, also, I assign because Miss Marvin says that it is unusual and unadvisable to have an architectural competition for buildings of less cost than $75,000. The other groups are deduced from my own experience.

I shall deal with only two of these groups at length, “Minimum” and “Very Large.” The very small, or “minimum” libraries are adequately dealt with by Miss Marvin, Eastman, and A. L. A. Tract No. 4. See, however, later under the heads of Plans, and also paragraphs under all heads which fit small libraries.

Classes. Arranging libraries according to their scope, I classify them thus:—

• Private.
• Club.
• Proprietary.
• Institutional.
• Professional.
• Scientific.
• Law.
• Medical, theological.
• Special business.
• Government.
• State.
• Historical and antiquarian.
• University.
• School.
• Public.
• Branches.
• Suburban.

Of these, I will treat Private and Club libraries in one chapter, Proprietary, Institutional and Professional in another, Government, State and Historical in a third, University, College and School in a fourth. To Public Libraries I will devote a separate chapter. “Branch” and “Suburban” I will consider in my chapter on Public libraries. To some one of these classes any collection of books may be assigned; any collection, that is, which might require separate treatment in this volume.

Mr. Belden, chairman of the Mass. Public Library Commission, writes me of the especial need of suggestions for small libraries, “which are springing up like mushrooms, most of them very poor specimens of what a good small library should be.... Trustees in small libraries are usually better planners than the librarian.”

Small Library Buildings

Minimum. For this grade of very small libraries having, on the Carnegie ten per cent basis, not much more than $500 a year to spend, there would seem to be still need of a special manual. Eastman has only two illustrations and Miss Marvin only one, in this grade, most of their plans being far more costly. In A. L. A. Tract No. 4, I gave about ten pages which would be especially useful to very small libraries. Eastman and Miss Marvin place the limits of a small library much higher than I do. It seems to me that a library—perhaps not the very smallest, but certainly one that could spare $10,000 for building—would know at least where to go for advice. But the minimum grade librarian would be apt to be an amateur or a novice, and her board would hardly know much about libraries or library personnel. To them clear, succinct, systematic suggestions, illustrated by just such views, floor plans and statistics as Miss Marvin has given, would be a very great help, especially in new and isolated communities.

If she, with Mr. Eastman’s assistance, could compile another manual or tract, confined to libraries which especially need specific advice, cannot afford to pay for it, and are situated at a distance from any experienced librarians, I think they would do very great good. Such libraries may even copy model plans if thus carefully selected and commended.

To condense here a few principles,—it is best to rent an inexpensive room and furnish it very simply, until the trustees have felt their way, know what to do and have say a thousand dollars in sight to build with and enough funds to run a building. But “it is desirable to get a library out of rented quarters as soon as possible.”—Utley.[29]

“A building is a good thing; it makes the library mean more to the public. Build to save light and coal, build to save work in keeping neat and clean, build to allow for growth, build so that one person can control and do all the work.”—Ranck.[30]

“A plain one-story wooden building built on posts, with only one room, heated by a stove, lighted by oil lamps, very simply lined with wall shelving, furnished with the plainest of tables and chairs, will do at first.”[31]

“The public library in a small town is usually its only intellectual center.”—O. Bluemner.[32] And it may become its pleasantest social center.

The first development would be to a one-story, one-room building on foundations, but not with finished cellar or basement. Perhaps a fireplace could be added, with more and better furniture and shelving, so planned that different corners and separate divisions of shelving, still under control from a central desk, could begin the rudimentary divisions of a library; reference, light reading, children. Serious reading would have to be postponed, or pursued under difficulties.

The next stage would still be confined to one open main floor, to be under one central supervision, built on the trefoil plan, center and two wings, in three rooms, or rather three parts of one room, divided by cords, rails, glass partitions or low bookcases. To this could be added at the back another projection, to be used as the reference library, or for open shelves. “In the trefoil plan, the end wall of the book room at the back might well be all glass, with no windows at the sides. This would be very easy to extend.”—O. Bluemner.[33] Up to this time, no provision need be made for a private room for the librarian.

But about this stage it is time to think of a raised cellar or basement, which will about double the available floor space and begin to allow division into departments, the first increase of force being a janitor who can act as supervisor of the lower rooms.

Soon after this a regular trefoil building can be erected with practicable basement, with the introduction of two small rooms at the inner corners of the back ell, where they need not block light from any room.

From this on to a two-story building with stairs, there are many alternatives, and no regular style of building can be prescribed.

When a town has no adviser at hand, it can apply to the state library commission, or if there is none in the state, to the nearest state commission, which at least can advise from what librarian it can get good advice.

Most of the very small libraries described in the 1899 Report of the Mass. Free Public Library Commission occupy a room or rooms in schoolhouses, town halls, churches, the librarian’s house, or public blocks. The smallest grade of separate library buildings seem to me more uniformly appropriate and beautiful than many of higher grades.

As I drive about seashore and mountain resorts and through small country towns, I see many beautiful little library buildings, usually closed at the time I pass, so that I cannot inspect the interiors. In the 1899 Report of the Mass. Free Public Library Commission, I find descriptions of several low-cost library buildings. For instance:—

with several others costing less than $5,000 and many costing $10,000 or less. Of some of these, exterior views are given in the report. I should much like to see interior views, floor plans, full statistics and comments of local librarians.

In A. L. A. Library Tract No. 4 I said, and still think, that—

“A rough, unpainted, cellarless, one-room wooden building could be put together for say $250, and can be fitted up and made comfortable in all weathers for as much more.

“From $1,000 to $2,500 will pay for a tasteful wooden building amply sufficient for a library of not over 5,000 volumes.

“$2,500 to $5,000 will erect a similar building, to hold 10,000 volumes or more.

“From $10,000 up will provide for a brick building, and from $15,000 up a stone building for growing libraries of 15,000 volumes or more, with the varied functions that such a collection implies.”

These figures are only an approximation and will vary in different sections, with prices of material and labor, but they will do for rough guess to start with.

The only comments in Miss Marvin’s pamphlet which seem specially to apply to this grade are these:—

“A building costing $3,000 or less cannot have library rooms in the basement.” (p. 5.)

“A $5,000 building usually consists of one large well-lighted room, with basement for storage and workrooms.” (p. 5.)

“Small buildings will be the same as the $10,000 buildings in the points of light, shelving, etc.” (p. 5.)

Small Buildings. But the grade from $5,000 to $20,000, which probably will include a large majority of American libraries, would be apt to be more sophisticated, to have a bright and even a trained librarian, and one or two practical trustees who could seek advice intelligently, get at similar libraries in their neighborhood or state, pick out a good architect, and not need precedents quite so much. Their problems are much the same as those of larger libraries. Their need of features looking towards economy of administration and effectiveness of supervision with a small force would be greater; but they would begin to have many of the essential functions of larger libraries; especially, in our rapidly developing communities, the interior and exterior provisions for growth which require such intelligent forethought and careful planning. Whatever may be thought of larger problems, here is the place for an experienced library architect, one who has already built a small library which stands the test of use, some clever and sympathetic young architect, perhaps, who has already shown his skill as a builder and his taste as a designer, but who is not too busy to give some of his own time to the task. With such an architect, thoroughly commended by librarians who know his work, there may not be need of a paid library expert.

Koch gives illustrations of ten library buildings in this grade, besides several branch libraries whose cost is not stated. Miss Marvin gives twelve illustrations in this grade; Eastman ten.

In this “small” grade would come many branches and many suburban libraries.

Some English plans show a two-story head-house, with a one-story extension to the rear, lighted from the roof. Why would not this plan work well on narrow and deep city lots?

Since writing the above, I have had a letter from Miss Marvin, from which I quote, “I should like to suggest that you advise small libraries to consider their state library commissions as their official advisers in the matter of building. They could help in detail work, pass upon their plans, and above all prepare the instructions for the architect before he begins to draw. Out in our part of the country in smaller towns, there are very few competent architects, and a great many beginners, who do not ask or expect instructions from the library boards. They simply draw pictures of their ideas of interiors and exteriors of libraries.”

See Light, artificial, p. 201; and Ventilation, windows-system, p. 210.