Page:Library Construction, Architecture, Fittings, and Furniture.djvu/177

Rh was erected as a memorial, no expense was spared by the donors to make it in every way worthy of the memory of its founder.

The new building of the National Library of Ireland, Dublin, was opened on 3oth August 1890. It forms the northern boundary of an open quadrangle off Kildare Street, Dublin, and faces the museum of science and art on the south side. It was built from the designs of Messrs. T. M. Deane & Sons.

The special features of the building are the isolation of the large central reading-room, and the adoption in the large book-stores on either side of the stack system of bookcases. The reading-room is on the first floor, and is approached by a colonnade, large vestibule and hall, which run through the centre of the building, and give access to the staircase. It is of horse-shoe shape, with a greatest length of 63 feet, and width of 60. It is nearly 50 feet high in the centre, and is lit by a large CL-ntral dome and side windows high in the walls. The lower part of the walls are shelved for books of reference, to which the readers have unrestricted admission.

The remainder of the stock is kept in two book-stores right and left of the reading-room, and connected therewith by a short corridor on either side. Of these stores, the one nearest Kildare Street is only as yet completed. The arrangement of the floors and bookcases in the storerooms was suggested by Mr. William Archer, the first librarian, in a pamphlet lie published in 1881, entitled