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Page 8
Straight flights are preferable to circular stairs.
The form of shelving which is growing in favor is the arrangement
of floor cases in large rooms with space between the tops of the
bookcases and the ceiling for circulation of air and the diffusion of
light.
Modern library plans provide accommodations for readers near the books
they want to use whatever system of shelving is adopted.
Single shelves should not be more than three feet long, on account of
the tendency to sag. Ten inches between shelves, and a depth of eight
inches, are good dimensions for ordinary cases. Shelves should be made
movable and easily adjustable. Many devices are now in the market for
this purpose, several of which are good."
Don't cut up your library with partitions unless you are sure they are
absolutely necessary. Leave everything as open as possible. A light
rail will keep intruders out of a private corner, and yet will not
shut out light, or prevent circulation of air, or take away from the
feeling of openness and breadth the library room ought to have.
For interior finish use few horizontal moldings; they make traps for
dust. Use such shades at the windows as will permit adjustment for
letting in light at top or bottom, or both. The less ornamentation in
the furniture the better. A simple pine or white-wood table is more
dignified and easier kept clean than a cheaply carved one of oak. But
get solid, honestly-made, simple furniture of oak or similar wood, if
funds permit. Arm-chairs are not often desirable. They take up much
room, are heavy to move, and are not easy to get in and out of at a
table. In many cases simple stools on a single iron standard, without
a revolving top, fastened to the floor, are more desirable than
chairs. The loafer doesn't like them; very few serious students object
to them.
A stack room for small libraries is not advisable. Don't crowd your
cases close together unless it is absolutely necessary.
An excellent form of wooden case is one seven feet high, with shelves
three feet long and seven and a half inches wide, supported on iron
pegs. The pegs fit into a series of holes bored one inch apart in the
sides of the case, thus making the shelves adjustable. These pegs can
be bought in the market in several shapes. The shelves have slots cut
in the under side at the ends to hold the projecting ends of the pegs,
thus giving no obstructions to the free movement of the books. With
some forms of pegs the slots are not needed. The uprights are made
of inch and a half stuff, or even inch and an eighth. The shelves are
inch stuff, finished to seven-eighths of an inch. The backs are
half inch stuff, tongued and grooved and put in horizontally. This
case-unit (3' x 7' x 8") may be doubled or trebled, making cases six
and nine feet long; or it may be made double-faced. If double-faced,
and nine feet long, it will hold about a thousand books of ordinary
size when full. It is often well to build several of your cases short
and with a single front--wall cases--as they are when in this form
more easily adjusted to the growing needs of the library.
A library can never do its best work until its management recognizes
the duty and true economy of providing skilled assistants, comfortable
quarters, and the best library equipment of fittings and supplies.
For cases, furniture, catalog cases, cards, trays, and labor-saving
devices of all kinds, consult the catalog of the Library Bureau.
Very many libraries, even the smallest, find it advantageous to use
for book cases what are known as "steel stacks." The demand for these
cases has been so great from libraries, large and small, that shelving
made from a combination of wood and steel has been very successfully
adapted to this use, and at a price within the reach of all libraries.
One of the principal advantages in buying such "steel stack" shelving,
with parts all interchangeable, is that in the rearrangement of
a room, or in moving into a new room or a new building, it can be
utilized to advantage, whereas the common wooden book cases very
generally cannot.
CHAPTER IX
Things needed in beginning work--Books, periodicals, and tools
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