A pril, 1916 
31 
THE BOOK’S THE THING 
And After That You Need in Your Library Roomy Chairs, a Writing Table, 
A Color Scheme to Quiet Your Nerves and a Fire to Make You Think 
ABBOT McCLURE and H. D. EBERLEIN 
A HOUSE without books 
is like a person without 
brains. Without a library or 
book room, a house, no mat¬ 
ter how large or how sumptu¬ 
ously furnished, savors of 
provincial narrowness; with 
it, if it be really used—be it 
never so small and modest— 
there comes at once in the 
atmosphere a pervading sug¬ 
gestion of breadth and cosmo¬ 
politan urbanity. We may 
carry our simile still farther 
and say that just as it is offen¬ 
sive to have the fact of a per¬ 
son’s mental equipment and 
erudition thrust gratuitously 
at every chance comer, so it 
is in exceedingly bad taste to 
have the library, either by its 
placing or arrangement, ob¬ 
trude itself upon everyone en¬ 
tering the house. It should 
have a privacy and be regarded as one of the more intimate 
portions of the home. Incidentally, one may add that either 
the library or the small book room is apt to indicate the 
owner’s personality to a marked degree. 
The Element of Comfort 
The practical side of furnishing the book room presents some 
definite points that must be considered if it is to prove either 
comfortable or useful. In the 
first place, the books must be 
so shelved that they are all 
within reach and easy to get 
at. The cases must also be so 
set that there is light enough 
to see what books are on each 
shelf. In the second place, 
the furniture should be ar¬ 
ranged with an eye to the 
maximum of informal and 
domestic comfort, and the 
seating furniture, such as 
chairs, settees, sofas and the 
like, ought not only to be put 
where their invitation to be 
seated is obvious and hospit¬ 
able, but their shape and meas¬ 
urements should be carefully 
calculated to ensure the great¬ 
est physical ease. A chair 
that may answer admirably 
for short occupancy during a 
call in a drawbng room may 
become a means of veritable torture in a library. A library 
that is not comfortable to sit in and read, so comfortable that 
it is certain to be much used; a library where the books are 
so stowed away that it is inconvenient to get at them, is noth¬ 
ing but a book prison, and the space it occupies might as well 
be given over to storage purposes. 
Whether there be a fair sized library or only a diminutive 
book room, the question of background is equally important. 
The bookcase in the corner started life as a closet. 
Then the door was taken off and shelves fastened 
in to fit the varying sizes of the books 
If books are worth keeping, they are worth keeping safe. This means safe from 
fire and erudite mice. The steel bookcase with adjustable shelves is one of the 
solutions. In this room, it has been designed to fit into the general finish of the 
room. Heivitt & Bottomley, architects 
