Page:The museum, (Jackson, Marget Talbot, 1917).djvu/89

Rh rooms. Sometimes a thermostat is used. Like all mechanical devices it does not always work, and must be supplemented by the common sense of the guardians who should not themselves touch the apparatus but simply report to the superintendent of buildings or engineer.

In installing a ventilating system it is well to remember that toilet rooms should always have direct outdoor ventilation, the smoking room must be on a separate duct and the kitchen and lunch rooms on another. The odor of cooking in a museum is out of place, but where the lunch-room ventilator opens into the same shaft as some of the galleries there will always be a smell of food, ventilating experts to the contrary notwithstanding.

It is advisable also to have the lecture room on a separate circuit. (See page 46.)

The staff rooms should always be provided with windows which open, and radiators for heat, and should not have any artificial ventilation. No such system is satisfactory to live with, and individual preference and special conditions call for separate treatment. Dust and variations in humidity will not matter here, but the possibility of quickly airing off the smell of a cleaning compound or of ink eradicator will make a great difference in the comfort of the staff.