Page:Library Construction, Architecture, Fittings, and Furniture.djvu/38

14 adjacent to the readers' room; but this may have a wall case around it for the most popular works, open for use without the formality of filling up a reader's ticket.

The elevation or façade of a library building should, as far as possible, be in keeping with the object for which it is erected, although there is always a difficulty in making the outside characteristic of the use to be made of the interior. The façade of the portion used for the staff and administrative rooms may indeed differ from that of the book stores and reading-rooms, as the best light for the former may be obtained from windows differing in size and shape from those used in the latter. This has been done in the public library at Athens (Fig. 141), where the central block, in which is placed the reading-room and administrative portion, is accentuated, and the two wings, which are used as book stores, form inner blocks set back from the frontage of the centre.

In large libraries the plan of placing the public reading-room in the central portion of the building seems, on the whole, the best, although it necessitates grouping the books around it, and so many will be shelved at a greater maximum distance from the delivery desks than would be the case if they were all placed on one side only of the reading-room. The book stores should be in direct communication with the reading-room, and should be so arranged that the attendants will not have to cross over any portion of the building used by the public to obtain a book.