Page:Library Construction, Architecture, Fittings, and Furniture.djvu/321

Rh are exhibited, and beyond it is the residence of the administrator, a hall for lectures, bookbinding rooms, rooms for photography, and the "Department des cartes et la Géographie."

In the stack-rooms the books are shelved in wooden cases five storeys in height, each case being 2½ metres. The floors are of open iron work, and in order to admit as much light as possible, are not taken close up to the cases, a distance of about 6 inches being left on either side, covered with wire-netting to catch any books that may be accidentally dropped upon them. The shelves are wooden, and rest upon brass pins screwed into holes in the uprights of the cases.

A plan of the ground floor of the whole building is shown in Fig. 131, from which the general arrangement of the rooms may be seen. The buildings on the vacant left hand corner have recently been taken down, and it is anticipated that a reading-room for lighter reading and magazines will be erected upon it.

The library of St. Geneviève was rebuilt in 1850, from the designs of M. Henry Labrouste. It is rectangular in form, with the principal façade occupying one of the longer sides. The building is 285 feet long by 90 feet wide. The whole of the first floor is taken up with a large reading-room, the edifice being only one storey in height. The south and principal frontage is pierced with thirty-seven arched windows in two rows; the intervals between are filled with panels, on which are inscribed the names of 810 writers of all nations, arranged in