Page:Library Construction, Architecture, Fittings, and Furniture.djvu/295

Rh is much shorter than that on the north. The newspaper-room, as has already been said, occupies the corner. Next to it is the librarian's office, with a door into the catalogue-room at its side, and the end room is the study room, 50 feet by 32 feet, which is shelved for ordinary books of reference.

The first floor contains a ladies' reading-room, of the same size as the newspaper-room beneath it, and room for chess, committee meetings, and lectures. The arrangement of the stack-room is as follows:—The bookcases are in a double row, right and left of the central gangway. They are 7 feet in height and 15 feet in length, and are divided into five divisions of 3 feet each. They are 18 inches in depth from back to front, and have no centre divisions. They are constructed of iron, and consist of upright standards made of 1-inch iron pipe, on which cast iron cross-pieces, flanged to receive the shelves, slide up and down, the cross-pieces being kept in position and adjusted by steel screws. The room is 22 feet high, and could take three tiers of 7 feet cases if necessary. At present only two tiers have been erected; the floor between them is made of thick rough glass, and iron gratings. The cases are 32 inches apart, and a passage 10 feet wide is railed off down the centre of the room for the public, light iron bridges running across to allow passage from the upper storeys of one book-stack to the other.

The general plan of the library is excellent, and the difficulties of the site have been well met by the architect.