experience should determine the question for each library.

Some public libraries, and especially those constructed in recent years,
are provided with a lecture-hall, or a large room for public meetings,
concerts, or occasionally, even an opera-house, in the same building with
the library. There are some excellent arguments in favor of this; and
especially where a public benefactor donates to a city a building which
combines both uses. The building given by Mr. Andrew Carnegie to the
Public Library of Washington will be provided with a small hall suited to
meetings, &c. But in all cases, such a public hall should be so isolated
from the library reading-room as not to annoy readers, to whom quiet is
essential. This end can be effected by having the intervening walls and
floors so constructed as completely to deaden sound. A wholly distinct
entrance should also be provided, not communicating with the doors and
passages leading to the library.

Comparisons are sometimes made as to the relative cost of library
buildings to the number of volumes they are designed to accommodate; but
such estimates are misleading. The cost of an edifice in which
architectural beauty and interior decoration concur to make it a
permanent ornament to a city or town, need not be charged up at so much
per volume. Buildings for libraries have cost all the way from
twenty-five cents up to $4. for each volume stored. The Library of
Congress, which cost six million dollars, and will ultimately accommodate
4,500,000 volumes, cost about $1.36 per volume. But it contains besides
books, some half a million musical compositions, works of graphic art,
maps and charts, etc.

The comparative cost of some library buildings erected in recent years,
with ultimate capacity of each, may be of interest. Kansas City Public
Library, 132+144, 125,000 vols., $200,000. Newark, N. J. Free Library,
138+216, 400,000 vols., $188,000. Forbes Library, Northampton, Mass.
(granite), 107+137, 250,000 vols., $134,000. Fall River, Ms. Library,
80+130, 250,000 vols., $100,000. Peoria, Ill. Public Library (brick),
76+135, $70,000. Smiley Memorial Library, Redlands, Cal. (brick), 96+100,
$50,000. Reuben Hoar Library, Littleton, Mass. (brick), 50+57, 25,000
vols., $25,000. Rogers Memorial Library, Southworth, N. Y. 70+100, 20,000
vols., $20,000. Belfast (Me.) Free Library (granite), 27+54, $10,000.
Gail-Borden Public Library, Elgin, Ill. (brick), 28+52, $9,000. Warwick,
Mass. Publi