Reading room

“ To us the children's library room is for reading, for study, for observation, for questioning undisturbed and undisturbing, while the entire library is still at the service of any child who desires to make practical use of it. ”

“ There is a spacious reading room at the further extremity of the library, where the student may take his worm-eaten folio, and seating himself in an old carved chair, may easily transport himself in fancy, two centuries back ”

“ Teach the children what a library reading room means. If in the first days there is a disposition on the part of any boy to be rough or unruly, or if a group of girls make a visiting-and-gum-chewing rendezvous of your tables, don't waste any time in Sunday-school methods of discipline, trying to keep a hold on the child at any cost to the library. A sentence in a report of Pratt Institute children's room is worth adopting as a guiding principle. "The work of the children's room should be educative, not reformatory." ”

“ I was, in fact, in the reading-room of the great British Library, an immense collection of volumes of all ages and languages, many of which are now forgotten, and most of which are seldom read: one of these sequestered pools of obsolete literature to which modern authors repair, and draw buckets full of classic lore, or “pure English, undefiled,” wherewith to swell their own scanty rills of thought. ”

“ The free reading room connected with most of our public libraries, and the library proper as well, if it be rightly conducted, is a powerful agent for counteracting the attractions of saloons and low resorts. Especially useful is it to those boys and young men who have a dormant fondness for reading and culture, but lack home and school opportunities. ”

“ The reading room feature is of great importance and whatever plan may be adopted regarding the loan of the books for home use there is no reason why the use of the reading room, the periodicals and the books in the room should not be absolutely free to all who will come there to use them. To make the reading room the brightest and most attractive spot in town for the boys who are inclined to be on the street of evenings is a [Pg 255] possibility for any library association, if a few earnest women will give time and effort toward this end. ”

“ A reading room is also provided where daily papers and popular magazines are kept, and where the men may write. In some cases, a smoking room adjoins. Meetings of a devotional character, to which the men may come or not as they see fit, are often held in the reading room. ”

“ The largest stream of all goes to the second floor, partly into the huge quiet reading-room, partly into the rotunda, which contains the catalog, partly into the hall containing the famous frescoes of the Holy Grail, where the books are given out. Here a million and a half books are delivered every year to be taken home and read. And no one has to wait; an apparatus carries the applicant's card with wonderful speed to the stacks, and the desired book is sent back in automatic cars. Little children meanwhile wander into the juvenile room, where they find the best books for children. ”

“ In busy times after school hours and on holidays, the reading room is frequently filled to overflowing, many of the children being obliged to stand, or perhaps turn away for lack of even standing room. ”

“ What was once the Warden’s room of the priestly establishment is now the Reading Room. To read scholarly books, to engage in the pursuit of curious knowledge in the Reading Room of Chetham’s Library is surely a wonderful privilege, for in this exquisite room, richly panelled in oak, with striped black-and-white plaster and timbered roof, and with gorgeously coloured and gilt wall paintings, the notorious Dr. ”

“ It is needless to describe a structure so familiar to all English men of letters as the new Reading Room. The original design, sketched by Mr. Panizzi on April 18, 1852, was submitted to the Trustees on May 5 following. ”

“ Let a child who lives in a cramped little flat where one can hardly set foot down without stepping on a baby come into a wide, lofty, spacious room set apart for children's reading, and, other conditions in the library being as they should the mere effect of the unwonted spaciousness will impress him and have a tendency to check the behavior that goes with tenement- house conditions. We of the profession are so impressed with the atmosphere that should pervade a library, that a very small and unpretentious collection of books brings our voices involuntarily to the proper library pitch. ”

“ I am of the opinion that, while we want to do everything in the world to attract the children to the library and the love of good reading, they should have impressed upon them so constantly the feeling that the children's room is a reading and study room that when a child is wandering around aimlessly, not behaving badly but simply killing time, he should be, not crossly nor resentfully, but pleasantly advised to go out into the park to play, as he doesn't feel like reading and this is a LIBRARY. I know that this has an excellent effect in developing the right idea of the purpose of the place. ”

“ A public library, comprising four or five thousand volumes, with a handsome chess-room in connection, offers attractions to the visitor and resident alike. The Young Men's Christian Association have also a reading-room in the same building. ”

“ There is a reading-room with newspapers free, bagatelle-table, and comfortable sitting-rooms; also a ladies' room and a lavatory, and cigars, tobacco, and all non-alcoholic drinks are provided. Men go there at night to read and to play games. ”

“ With a big living-porch, the one indoor living-room may become a quiet library, for instance. But if you haven't a garden or a sun-room, you should do all in your power to bring the sunshine and gaiety into the living-room, and take your books and quiet elsewhere. A library eight by ten feet, with shelves all the way around and up and down, and two comfortable chairs, and one or two windows, will be a most satisfactory library. If the room is to be used for reading smallness doesn't matter, you see. ”

“ The reader should practice in the room where the entertainment is to be given, at least enough to be sure of its acoustic properties and so secure the right pitch of voice,--height and size of room, as well as shape and furnishings, making a great difference.
The reading must be given in front of the closed curtain, that the manager may be having the stage prepared for each succeeding tableau, that it may be presented promptly when desired. ”

“ Each student is hard at work examining, comparing, collating. She is to be called on to-morrow in class to tell what she has learned, or next week to hand in a thesis the product of her study. All eyes are intent upon the allotted task; no one looks up to see you when you enter. In the same building is another room which I will call The Lounge, though I think it bears a different name. The books are upon shelves around the wall and all are within easy reach. ”

“ I think I should enjoy dictating to a stenographer, with some one to prompt me and to act as audience. The room adjoining this was fitted up for my study. My manuscripts and notes and private books and many of my letters are there, and there are a trunkful or two of such things in the attic. I seldom use the room myself. I do my writing and reading in bed. I will turn that room over to you for this work. Whatever you need will be brought to you. We can have the dictation here in the morning, and you can put in the rest of the day to suit yourself. ”

“ Sidney Smith said, "There can be no handsomer furniture than books." Every room, every nook and corner of the house, is furnished with new books. The room specially devoted to library uses has a selection of books in every department of reading, sufficient for the instruction and pleasure of any man of [Pg 147] refined taste and culture. ”

“ Reading-rooms are a new institution full of promise. They are not libraries, but places for reading and expounding newspapers for the benefit of those who are unable to read for themselves. Numerous rooms may be seen at the street corners, where men are reciting the contents of a paper to an eager crowd. ”

“ I like to fancy myself sitting in a dark old upper room in some remote farm-house, at the close of a winter day, after three or four hours of steady reading or writing. The room is full of books—the best books. ”

“ The two little girls set busily to work, and soon they had cut out a quantity of chairs, tables, beds, and furniture of all sorts from the pictured pages.
These they pasted in the book. Each page was a room, and in the room were arranged appropriate furniture and ornaments.
The parlor had beautiful and elaborate furniture, rugs, pictures, bric-a-brac, and even lace curtains at the windows. The library had beautiful bookcases, writing-desk, reading-table and a lamp, easy-chairs, and everything that belongs in a well-ordered library. ”

“ Dearly, however, though we may treasure the benefits and conveniences which these libraries of ancient foundation afford, for most of us there is another library that is nearer to our hearts; that cosy chamber with which we are accustomed to associate warmth, comfort, soft chairs and footrests, a wide writing-table that we may pile high with books, with scribbling-paper, foolscap and marking-slips in plenty. In short, a room so far removed from earthly cares and noise, that the dim occasional sounds of the outside world serve but to accentuate our absolute possession of ease. ”

“ How much a neat and carefully arranged shelf of books appeals to one's taste, I need not say, nor urge the point how much an orderly and neatly kept room, or desk, or table adds to one's comfort. The librarian who has the proper spirit of his calling should take pains to make the whole library look neat and attractive, to have a place for everything, and everything in its place. ”

“ We Americans love books—popular books!—and we have had sense enough to bring them into our living-rooms, and enjoy them. But when you begin calling a room a library it should mean something more than a small mahogany bookcase with a hundred volumes hidden behind glass doors. I think there is nothing more amusing than the unused library of the nouveau riche, the pretentious room with its monumental bookcases and its slick area of glass doors and its thousands of unread volumes, caged eternally in their indecent newness. ”

“ For here also, the large and stately library, with its nobly designed bookcases—still empty of books—its classical panelling, and embossed ceiling, made a setting of which the miscellaneous plunder within it was not worthy. A man of taste would have conceived the beautiful room itself as suffering from the disorderly uses to which it was put. ”

“ In short, the class room of to-day is not the class room of yesterday. It is full of new light—and of new shadows. As time goes on, some will make strange discoveries. And some, for the sake of comfort, may pull down the blinds. ”

“ One had taken supervision of the sleeping-rooms, another of the kitchen furniture, and a third had arranged the library, as it was called, a room which was to answer the threefold purpose of school-room, chapel, and lecture-hall. The woodmen returned to find every thing in order, a plentiful supper spread for their repast, and smiling faces all around the board; as people are always cheerful when they have done good actions. ”

“ I wrote so fully in my former book on the arrangement of sitting-rooms that I am only going to touch lightly on the orthodox papering and painting of dining-, drawing-, and morning-rooms, reserving all my new ideas for the billiard-room and library, neither of which rooms were considered likely to be required for the modest young couple starting in life, for whom I more particularly designed that special volume. ”

“ THE HOUSEHOLD LIBRARY Every intelligent man, whether an enthusiastic book-lover or not, recognizes that books should form part of the fittings of every room in a house. Whether the apartment be a library, study, parlour, nursery, drawing-room, kitchen, bedroom, dining-room, boudoir, hall, or den, books of a suitable kind should form part of its equipment. ”

“ The selection of adult books in all classes, especially in biography, travel, history and literature is too limited in the children's rooms of many libraries and should be enlarged to the point of making the shelves of classed books look more like those of a library and less like those of a school room. ”

“ The retiring rooms and lunch rooms for assistants, the conversation or class rooms for special work, the rooms for rough work—as mending or binding and the manual part of the preparation of books for the shelf—the periodical room, and the newspaper room can all be placed at a distance from the library's real center, the delivery counter ”

“ Once or twice he rose, rubbed his eyes, and looked round the room—the room where as a boy he had spent idle hours, where as a student he had been in the hands of his tutor, and as a young man had found recreations such as belong to ambitious and ardent youth. ”

“ Then he crossed the room and entered the library. Hall followed and snapped on the switch near the door. The room, while not as handsomely furnished as the living room, was none the less attractive, mahogany and dull green throughout. The walls, from floor to ceiling, were lined with bookcases. It was quite evident that the array of books in the living room merely represented the overflow from the library. The centre table in the library, while massive, was different from that in the living room. ”

“ The primness of the books, the little galleries guarded by brass railings, here and there a reading-desk, the sweet silence of the place, the young men reading at the polished oak tables, the colour of the oak and the folios, the rich Turkey carpets, lent to the library that happy air of separation from the brutalities of life which is almost sanctity. ”