Page:Library Construction, Architecture, Fittings, and Furniture.djvu/193

Rh The "Picton" reading-room, although a separate building, is connected by a corridor with the "Brown" Library. It is a circular hall, 100 feet in diameter, and was designed by Mr. C. Sherlock, the constructional iron-work of the floor being designed by Mr. J. N. Shoolbred. The room is 32 feet high to the spring of the ceiling, and 56 feet at the highest point, and will seat 260 readers. It is entirely lit from a circular opening in the roof 24 feet in diameter. The lecture-hall underneath, which is of the same area, and seats 1500 persons, is 27 feet high, and is cut out of the solid sandstone on which Liverpool is chiefly built, the rock being cut into terraces to form the raised seats of the auditorium.

The reading-room is shelved all round to a height of about 20 feet, the upper shelves being reached by a gallery; it is contemplated placing another tier of shelving above those now in situ with a second gallery whenever more shelf-room is required. There are also 16 double bookcases, 8 feet in length, and 8 feet high, projecting from the walls, forming radii of a circle. The readers are seated at tables in the centre of the room, and formerly some were allowed to use tables in the alcoves formed by the double bookcases; but this privilege has now been withdrawn, the "open access" thus allowed to valuable books being found to be too great a strain upon the honesty of some of them.

The lecture-hall underneath was first intended for use as a book-store; but this was abandoned in favour of an aquarium, and then the latter, in its turn, was dropped for its present use, the committee