Page:Library Construction, Architecture, Fittings, and Furniture.djvu/279

Rh Mergenthaler type-setting machines, which set up and cast the titles in separate lines. By this means the title once set can be preserved and used again when necessary, and the cost of the composition for future catalogues is saved.

The building is lit by the electric light, which is generated in the basement. The system of ventilation is similar to that in use in the Aberdeen Public Library, described at pages 37, 38. The fresh air is drawn through a grating from the interior court by means of an eighteen-foot fan, capable of moving 40,000 cubic feet a minute. It is strained through bags of cotton to free it from dust, and in cold weather passes through a hot chamber, and is heated before entering the library. An exhaust-fan is placed in the roof, which helps to draw out the foul air. The engine used for the production of the electric light is also used for working the ventilating fans.

Some of the arrangements of the building are open to criticism from a librarian's point of view. One is the situation of the delivery room. It will be noted that it is upstairs, and at the extreme end of one side of the stack-room, one counter serving both for the readers who wish to use books on the premisis, and for those who require them for home reading. In most of the larger British libraries the two departments are kept distinct, and it is almost an axiom that the books for home ling should be issued on the ground floor. The of elevators minimises to some extent this, but it would be better if a room on the