A Library Primer Part 2

Shelving for folios and quartos should be provided in every book room.

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 s.p.a.ce 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 part.i.tions 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 a.s.sistants, 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 princ.i.p.al 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

The books and other things included in the following list--except those starred or excepted in a special note, the purchase of which can perhaps be deferred until the library contains a few thousand volumes--are essential to good work, and should be purchased, some of them as soon as a library is definitely decided upon, the others as soon as books are purchased and work is actually begun.

I. BOOKS

*American catalog of books in print from 1876-1896, 5v. with annual supplement. The Publishers' weekly, N.Y. Several of the volumes are out of print. All are expensive. They are not needed by the very small library. The recent years of the annual volumes are essential.

Card catalog rules; accessions-book rules; shelf-list rules; Library Bureau, 1899, $1.25. These are called the Library school rules.

Catalog of A.L.A. library; 5000v. for a popular library, selected by the American Library a.s.sociation, and shown at the World's Columbian exhibition, Washington, 1893. Sent free from the United States Bureau of education.

*English catalog, 1835-1896, 5v., with annual supplement. The annual supplements for recent years are needed by the small library; the others are not.

Five thousand books, an easy guide to books in every department.

Compiled for the Ladies' home journal, 1895. Curtis Publishing Company, Philadelphia, Pa. Paper, 10 cents. Out of print, but can probably be found second-hand.

Fletcher, W.I. Public Libraries in America, 1894. Roberts Bros., Boston, $1.

Library Bureau catalog, containing list of library tools, fittings, and appliances of all kinds, 1898. To be obtained of the Library Bureau, Chicago, 215 Madison St.; Boston, 530 Atlantic Ave.; New York, 250 Broadway; Philadelphia, 112 N. Broad St.; Washington, 1416 F St., N.W.

Plummer, M.W. Hints to small libraries, 1898. Truslove & Comba, N.Y., 50 cents.

Public library handbook, by the Public library, Denver, 1894. Out of print.

Publishers' trade list annual, 1900, v. 28. Office of the Publishers'

weekly, N.Y., $2. Catalogs of all important American publishers bound together in one volume.

Reference catalog of current literature, 1898. Catalogs of English publishers, bound in one volume and indexed. J. Whitaker & Sons, London, $5.

Rules for an author and t.i.tle catalog, condensed. See Cutter, Rules for a dictionary catalog, 1891, p. 99-103. Sent from the United States Bureau of education, Washington, free. These are the rules adopted by the American Library a.s.sociation.

*Sonnenschein, W.S. Best books, readers' guide, 1891. Sonnenschein, London, $8. Gives author, t.i.tle, publisher and price of about 50,000 carefully selected and carefully cla.s.sified books.

Sonnenschein, W.S. Reader's guide to contemporary literature (50,000v.), supplement to Best books, 1895. Sonnenschein, London, $6.50.

*Subject headings for use in dictionary catalogs, Library Bureau, 1898, $2. In a small library this is not needed, but it will save trouble to get it.

Lawrence, I. Cla.s.sified reading. A list with publishers and prices of books for the school, the library, and the home, 1898. Normal school, St Cloud, Minn., $1.25.

Iles, George. List of books for girls and women and their clubs, 1895.

Library Bureau, $1.

World's library congress, papers prepared for, held at World's Columbian exposition, Chicago, 1893. United States Bureau of education, Washington, D.C., free. Covers very fully the entire field of library economy.

II. PERIODICALS

Book news, monthly. Wanamaker, Philadelphia, 50 cents. (Book reviews.)

Dial, semi-monthly, 24 Adams St., Chicago, $2. (Book reviews, notes and essays.)

Literature, weekly. Harper & Bros., N.Y., $4. (Current English and American literature.)

Nation, weekly. New York, $3. (Book reviews, art, politics.)

Publishers' weekly, the American book trade journal, 59 Duane St., N.Y., $5. (Lists nearly all American and best English books as published.)

Library journal, monthly, $5 a year, 58 Duane St., New York. This is the official organ of the American Library a.s.sociation.

Public libraries, monthly, $1 a year, 215 Madison St., Chicago.

Presents library methods in a manner especially helpful to small libraries.

New York Times Sat.u.r.day review of books and art. The Times, N.Y., $1.

Monthly c.u.mulative book index. An author, t.i.tle, and subject index to the books published during the current year, brought up to date in one alphabet each month. Morris & Wilson, Minneapolis, Minn., $1.50

III. OTHER THINGS