On Books and the Housing of Them [7]
use this knowledge can be attained, and that the resulting difficulties, when measured against the aggregate of convenience, are really insignificant. It will be noticed that my remarks are on minute details, and that they savor more of serious handiwork in the placing of books than of lordly survey and direction. But what man who really loves his books delegates to any other human being, as long as there is breath in his body, the office of inducting them into their homes?
And now as to results. It is something to say that in this way 10,000 volumes can be placed within a room of quite ordinary size, all visible, all within easy reach, and without destroying the character of the apartment as a room. But, on the strength of a case with which I am acquainted, I will even be a little more particular. I take as before a room of forty feet in length and twenty in breadth, thoroughly lighted by four windows on each side; as high as you please, but with only about nine feet of height taken for the bookcases: inasmuch as all heavy ladders, all adminicula requiring more than one hand to carry with care, are forsworn. And there is no gallery. In the manner I have described, there may be placed on the floor of such a room, without converting it from a room into a warehouse, bookcases capable of receiving, in round numbers, 20,000 volumes.
The state of the case, however, considered as a whole, and especially with reference to libraries exceeding say 20,000 or 30,000 volumes, and gathering rapid accretions, has been found to require in extreme cases, such as those of the British Museum and the Bodleian (on its limited site), a change more revolutionary in its departure from, almost reversal of, the ancient methods, than what has been here described.
The best description I can give of its essential aim, so far as I have seen the processes (which were tentative and initial), is this. The masses represented by filled bookcases are set one in front of another; and, in order that access may be had as it is required, they are set upon trams inserted in the floor (which must be a strong one), and wheeled off and on as occasion requires.
The idea of the society of books is in a case of this kind abandoned. But even on this there is something to say. Neither all men nor all books are equally sociable. For my part I find but little sociabilty in a huge wall of Hansards, or (though a great improvement) in the Gentleman's Magazine, in the Annual Registers, in the Edinburgh and Quarterly Reviews, or in the vast range of volumes which represent pamphlets innumerable. Yet each of these and other like items variously present to us the admissible, or the valuable, or the indispensable. Clearly these masses, and such as these, ought to be selected first for what I will not scruple to call interment. It is a burial; one, however, to which the process of cremation will never of set purpose be applied. The word I have used is dreadful, but also dreadful is the thing. To have our dear old friends stowed away in catacombs, or like the wine-bottles in bins: the simile is surely lawful until the use of that commodity shall have been prohibited by the growing movement of the time. But however we may gild the case by a cheering illustration, or by the remembrance that the provision is one called for only by our excess of wealth, it can hardly be contemplated without a shudder at a process so repulsive applied to the best beloved among inanimate objects.
It may be thought that the gloomy perspective I am now opening exists for great public libraries alone. But public libraries are multiplying fast, and private libraries are aspiring to the public dimensions. It may be hoped that for a long time to come no grave difficulties will arise in regard to private libraries, meant for the ordinary use of that great majority of readers who read only for recreation or for general improvement. But when study, research, authorship, come into view, when the history of thought and of inquiry in each of its branches, or in any considerable number of them, has
And now as to results. It is something to say that in this way 10,000 volumes can be placed within a room of quite ordinary size, all visible, all within easy reach, and without destroying the character of the apartment as a room. But, on the strength of a case with which I am acquainted, I will even be a little more particular. I take as before a room of forty feet in length and twenty in breadth, thoroughly lighted by four windows on each side; as high as you please, but with only about nine feet of height taken for the bookcases: inasmuch as all heavy ladders, all adminicula requiring more than one hand to carry with care, are forsworn. And there is no gallery. In the manner I have described, there may be placed on the floor of such a room, without converting it from a room into a warehouse, bookcases capable of receiving, in round numbers, 20,000 volumes.
The state of the case, however, considered as a whole, and especially with reference to libraries exceeding say 20,000 or 30,000 volumes, and gathering rapid accretions, has been found to require in extreme cases, such as those of the British Museum and the Bodleian (on its limited site), a change more revolutionary in its departure from, almost reversal of, the ancient methods, than what has been here described.
The best description I can give of its essential aim, so far as I have seen the processes (which were tentative and initial), is this. The masses represented by filled bookcases are set one in front of another; and, in order that access may be had as it is required, they are set upon trams inserted in the floor (which must be a strong one), and wheeled off and on as occasion requires.
The idea of the society of books is in a case of this kind abandoned. But even on this there is something to say. Neither all men nor all books are equally sociable. For my part I find but little sociabilty in a huge wall of Hansards, or (though a great improvement) in the Gentleman's Magazine, in the Annual Registers, in the Edinburgh and Quarterly Reviews, or in the vast range of volumes which represent pamphlets innumerable. Yet each of these and other like items variously present to us the admissible, or the valuable, or the indispensable. Clearly these masses, and such as these, ought to be selected first for what I will not scruple to call interment. It is a burial; one, however, to which the process of cremation will never of set purpose be applied. The word I have used is dreadful, but also dreadful is the thing. To have our dear old friends stowed away in catacombs, or like the wine-bottles in bins: the simile is surely lawful until the use of that commodity shall have been prohibited by the growing movement of the time. But however we may gild the case by a cheering illustration, or by the remembrance that the provision is one called for only by our excess of wealth, it can hardly be contemplated without a shudder at a process so repulsive applied to the best beloved among inanimate objects.
It may be thought that the gloomy perspective I am now opening exists for great public libraries alone. But public libraries are multiplying fast, and private libraries are aspiring to the public dimensions. It may be hoped that for a long time to come no grave difficulties will arise in regard to private libraries, meant for the ordinary use of that great majority of readers who read only for recreation or for general improvement. But when study, research, authorship, come into view, when the history of thought and of inquiry in each of its branches, or in any considerable number of them, has