Page:Library Construction, Architecture, Fittings, and Furniture.djvu/304

280 the whole of its southern half. There are streets both east and west, so the building has light on three sides and a portion of the fourth.

The dominant feature of the building is the entrance in the centre of the Grand Avenue front. The large entrance-hall forms a rotunda, lit from the roof, and from it, running right and left, is a corridor giving access to the museum portion of the building to the west and the library portion to the east and north. The building is set back some 25 feet from the street, and across the facade is a terrace enclosed by a balustrade at the street line. The rotunda or entrance-hall is the common ground of both library and museum, the centre which all visitors must enter. An attempt has been made, therefore, to make it as beautiful as possible, with rich and fine ornament in mosaic and marble. On either side, to left and right, are staircases leading to the upper floors, and two passenger lifts for the same purpose. Directly north of the rotunda, and entered by three large doorways, is the delivery room of the library (Fig. 125). This is one storey only in height, and is lit from the roof. It is about 80 feet by 26, and has a counter with returns running the full length. On the left of the delivery room is a children's room, about 40 feet by 25, and on the right a room of similar size for the public use of the catalogue; both of these rooms are directly accessible to the assistants from behind the counter.

North of the delivery room, and opening into it by four doorways, is the book-stack, built in the form of three sides of a hollow square, the end