THE PUBLIC AND ITS PUBLIC LIBRARY. 247 



even see the person who does see them. He must depend on lists, 

 telephones, pneumatic tubes, and traveling baskets and this in 

 the most expensive and most extensive and most lauded library 

 in the United States to-day. 



What, now, the open- shelf method of administration being de- 

 cided upon, should be the character of the building in which the 

 public library is housed ? The storehouse idea must be discarded 

 at once. What is wanted is a workshop, a place for readers and 

 students, not a safety- deposit building. The men and women who 

 visit the library and use it their convenience and comfort must 

 be first consulted ; how the books are to be stored is another and 

 a secondary question. Nor can the monumental idea be for a mo- 

 ment maintained. The library, if it is to be a modern, effective, 

 working institution, can not forego the demands of its daily ten- 

 ants for light, room, and air, and submit to the limitations set by 

 calls for architectural effects, for imposing halls, charming vistas, 

 and opportunities for decoration. The workshop, the factory, the 

 office building, the modern business structure of almost any kind, 

 these, rather than the palace, the temple, the cathedral, the memo- 

 rial hall, or the mortuary pile, however grand, supply the exam- 

 ples in general accordance with which the modern book labora- 

 tory should be constructed. It is a place, is this book laboratory, 

 in which each day hundreds and thousands of visitors must, for 

 ten minutes or as many hours, use their eyes in reading type of 

 all degrees of excellence and badness. First, then, every sacrifice 

 must be made to secure all possible daylight in every corner. It 

 is a place, again, in which many of the daily visitors will wish to 

 go, at the same time, to the same shelves, the same cases, the same 

 alcoves, or the same rooms, and the same desks and tables. Space 

 well-lighted, well- ventilated floor space then, should be given 

 to the- public with the utmost prodigality. There is no room left, 

 unless economy in construction and administration be entirely 

 disregarded for architectural display, except as it is the natural 

 outcome of plans based primarily on utility. 



The power of a library lies first in its books. Up to a certain 

 variable limit, varying with their character and with the time and 

 the place, quantity of books is of first importance. As the library 

 supported by compulsory taxation is justified only as it serves to 

 make the ignorant citizen wise and the wise citizen wiser still, its 

 first care should be for its supply of tools its implements for 

 cultivating wisdom its books. The library building, as of the 

 second and not of the first importance, should therefore be eco- 

 nomical in its construction. It need not be, it should not be, 

 penurious in its appearance. To a limited extent it may speak to 

 the passer-by of the generosity of the community, of the respect 

 in which its builders hold the business of education. But if solid 



