. Annual report of the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution. Smithsonian Institution; Smithsonian Institution. Archives; Discoveries in science. STUDIES ON MUSEUMS AND KINDRED INSTITUTIONS. 461 15 feet. These heij^hts so greatly exceed the heights of the book stacks, which are 7 feet 6 inches high, and which can be used without ladders, that a large free space remains above them, and the books are also lighted laterally from above. This has been done to give them "light and breathing space," but I am not aware that books suffer even in closed cases, and it contradicts the
. Annual report of the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution. Smithsonian Institution; Smithsonian Institution. Archives; Discoveries in science. STUDIES ON MUSEUMS AND KINDRED INSTITUTIONS. 461 15 feet. These heij^hts so greatly exceed the heights of the book stacks, which are 7 feet 6 inches high, and which can be used without ladders, that a large free space remains above them, and the books are also lighted laterally from above. This has been done to give them "light and breathing space," but I am not aware that books suffer even in closed cases, and it contradicts the principles of modern library arrangement, according to which the books should be compressed into as narrow a space as possible, which, owing to the rapid increase of books in our prolific times, is the only possible method of preventing a too wide extension of the building. For this reason stacks are piled directly on stacks with hardly any free space between. Sufficient air. Fig. .17.—Newberry Library, Principal entrance. for " breathing" is afforded by good ventilation, and the electric light to-day affords means of temporary illumination of the darkest corners, while the daylight, bleaching everything that it falls upon, can not be considered in any case as the most desirable. The book stacks are 10 inches deep. ^ In March, 1901, there were in the library 229,361 books, pamphlets (71,859), maps, manuscripts, etchings, and autographs (of which 56 per cent were in languages other than English), an average for the fourteen years of 16,000 numbers a year, so that at the end of 1901 there will be almost one-quarter of a million. The present building has room for 900,000; with the prospective later building there would. Please note that these images are extracted from scanned page images that may have been digitally enhanced for readability - coloration and appearance of these illustrations may not perfectly resemble the original Smithsonian Institution. Board o
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