Page:Library Construction, Architecture, Fittings, and Furniture.djvu/71

Rh "The attendant in charge will have an opportunity to become acquainted with the books in his department, and competent to assist readers in their investigations. There will be no need of a general reading-room other than one in which are kept encyclopaedias, dictionaries, and general works of reference. When it is necessary, books can be loaned from one department to another, as they are now sent to the general reading-room. As a general rule, readers will go to the room which contains the class of books which they wish to study.

"As a protection from fire, each room used for the storage of books is cut off from every other room by a brick fire-wall extending through the roof, and every floor will be made thoroughly fireproof. The only access to the rooms will be by a light iron corridor at each storey, seven feet wide, running around on the inside of the quadrangle, as indicated on Fig. 7. If by accident fire should start in any one of these forty rooms, it could not endanger the safety of the other thirty-nine. In the rear of the central part of the building will be an elevator, which will land readers upon the level of any of the corridors; it will also have stairways, besides its elevator for reaching its several stories."

It will be seen that Dr. Poole's plan is practically that of the stack room system, with solid fireproof floors, and a distribution of the readers into irate reading-rooms, instead of concentrating them in one large room. One objection made to