rtain whether it is
in a reader's hands when sought for. System and the alphabet alone will
solve all difficulties.

As to the space required for readers in a periodical room, it may be
assumed that about five hundred square feet will accommodate twenty-five
readers, and the same proportion for a larger number at one time. A room
twenty-five by forty would seat fifty readers, while one twenty-five by
twenty would accommodate twenty-five readers, with proper space for
tables, &c. The files for newspapers are referred to in another chapter
on periodicals.

In a library building, the heating and ventilation are of prime
importance. Upon their proper regulation largely depends the health and
consequently the efficiency of all employed, as well as the comfort of
the reading public. There is no space to enter upon specific
descriptions, for which the many conflicting systems, with experience of
their practical working, should be examined. Suffice it to say in
general, that a temperature not far below nor above 70 degrees Fahrenheit
should be aimed at; that the furnace, with its attendant nuisances of
noise, dust, and odors, should be outside the library building--not under
it; and that electric lighting alone should be used, gas being highly
injurious to the welfare of books.

In calculating the space required for books shelved as has been
heretofore suggested, it may be approximately stated that every one
thousand volumes will require at least eighty to one hundred square feet
of floor measurement. Thus, a library of 10,000 volumes would occupy an
area of nearly one thousand square feet. But it is necessary to provide
also for the continual growth of the collection. To do this, experience
shows that in any flourishing public library, space should be reserved
for three or four times the number of volumes in actual possession. If
rooms are hired for the books, because of inability to build, the library
should be so arranged as to leave each alternate shelf vacant for
additions, or, in the more rapidly growing divisions, a still greater
space. This will permit accessions to be shelved with their related
books, without the trouble of frequently moving and re-arranging large
divisions of the library. This latter is a very laborious process, and
should be resorted to only under compulsion. The preventive remedy, of
making sure of space in advance, by leaving a sufficiency of unoccupied
shelves in every division of the library,