ReSUMS ED 031 894 Er 003 114 Library Furniture …DOCUMBH? ReSUMS ED 031 894 Er 003 114 Library Furniture and Equipment. Proceedings of a Three-Day Institute (CoralCables, Florida,

DOCUMBH? ReSUMS

ED 031 894 Er 003 114

Library Furniture and Equipment. Proceedings of a Three-Day Institute (Coral Cables, Florida, June 14-16.1962).

American Library Association. Chicago, III.Spons Agency-American Library Association. Chicago, III. Library Administration Div.; Miami Univ.. Coral Cables.

Fla.Pub Date 63Note -75p.MRS Price Mr -$0.50 HC-$3.85Descriptors - *Furniture, *Library Equipment. *Library Facilities, Specifications

Furniture and equipment for library facilities are dealt with in terms of--(1)furniture selection. (2) book stack selection. (3) specification writing and biddingprocedures, (4) equipment and methods in catalog card reproduction. (5) equipmentand methods in photocopying with special emphasis on copying from bound volumes.and (6) equipment and methods in the production of full-size copy from microtext.Panel discussions from the proceedings are included. IRK)

Library Furniture and Equipment

PROCEEDINGS OF A THREE-DAY INSTITUTE

conducted at Coral Gables, Florida, June 14-16, 1962

SPONSORED BY THE LIBRARY ADMINISTRATION DIVISION

AMERICAN LIBRARY ASSOCIATION

IN COOPERATION WITH THE UNIVERSITY OF MIAMI

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH, EDUCATION EL WELFARE

OFFICE OF EDUCATION

THIS DOCUMENT HAS BEEN REPRODUCED EXACTLY AS RECEIVED FROM THE

PERSON OR ORGANIZATION ORIGINATING IT. POINTS OF VIEW OR OPINIONS

STATED DO NOT NECESSARILY REPRESENT OFFICIAL OFFICE OF EDUCATION

POSITION OR POLICY.

American Library Association Chicago, 1963

J)

"PERMISSION TO REPRODUCE THIS

COPYRIGHTED MATERIAL HAS BEEN GRANTED

BY A M e ssoc-CALeti-omse R. rkez_zh

TO ERIC AND ORGANIZATIONS OPERATING

UNDER AGREEMENTS WITH THE U.S. OFFICE OF

EDUCATION. FURTHER REPRODUCTION OUTSIDE

THE ERIC SYSTEM REOUIRES PERMISSION OF

THE COPYRIGHT OWNER."

Copyright ©1963 by the American Library AssociationManufactured in the United States of America

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 63-18322

IIIM.11...S71.....-,11.2,...11111 _

I'oreword

The Arrerican Library Association through its divi-sions has traditionally sponsored Building and Equip-ment Institutes, usually on a biennual basis.

In 1962 the Library Administration Division departedfrom the usual procedure and sponsored an Equip-ment Institute. The division's Equipment Committeeand the Library Technology Project co-sponsoredthis Institute. Interest in the Equipment Institutewas wide spread. The papers, discussion and theunique exhibit were well received. For the firsttime the librarian had an opportunity to examinefurniture and equipment not in widely separatedareas in an exhibit hall, but in a single area whereequipment was displayed by types, i.e., shelving ar-

ranged together, all card catalog cabinets arrangedtogether, etc.

The success of the Equipment Institute held at theUniversity of Miami encourages us to plan a separateEquipment and Buildings Institute to be held in alter-nate years.

The sequence of the papers in these proceedings dif-fers slightly from the order in which they were pre-sented (see program). The change was made forbetter continuity. These proceedings were edited byEdward Johnson, Technical Editor, Library Tech-nology Project; Frazer G. Poole, Director, LibraryTechnology Project; and the undersigned.

Alphonse F. TrezzaExecutive SecretaryLibrary Administration Division

iii

American Library AssociationLibrary Administration Division

Section on Buildings and Equipment Public LibraryLansing, Michigan

Harold Roth, ChairmanDirectorPublic LibraryEast Orange, New Jersey

Thelma Reid, Vice ChairmanChief LibrarianCity Schools LibrarySan Diego, California

Edward C. Heintz, SecretaryLibrarian, Kenyon College LibraryGambier, Ohio

Committees

Library Technology ProjectFrazer G. Poole

Director

Forrest CarhartAssistant Director

Eugene SalmonHead, Technical Information Service

Edward JohnsonTechnical Editor

Gladys PiezARCHITECTURE COMMITTEE FOR PUBLIC Senior Educational AssistantLIBRARIES

Robert H. Rohlf, ChairmanDirector Charles L. Morgan, ChairmanDakota-Scott Regional Library Acquisitions LibrarianWest St. Paul, Minnesota University of Miami Library

Coral Gables, Florida

Committee on Local Arrangements

BUILDINGS COMMITTEE FOR COLLEGE ANDUNIVERSITY LIBRARIES Archie McNeal

Direr forJohn B. Nicholson, Chairman University of Miami Library

Director Coral Gables, FloridaKent State University LibraryKent, Ohio Mrs. Mildred Se lle

Assistant Acquisitions LibrarianEQUIPMENT COMMITTEE University of Miami Library

Coral Gables, FloridaWilliam S. Geller, Chairman

Assistant LibrarianLos Angeles County Public LibraryLos Angeles, California

PLANNING SCHOOL LIBRARY QUARTERSCOMMITTEE

Mildred L. Nickel, ChairmanDirector, School Libraries

iv

Mr. William FisherLibrary AccountantUniversity of Miami LibraryCoral Gables, Florida

Mrs. Sue GreggSecretary to Dr. McNealUniversity of Miami LibraryCoral Gables, Florida

Alphonse F. Trezza, Executive Secretary

1:00 to5:00 p.m.

6:00 to7:45 p.m.

Program

THURSDAY, JUN 1,., 1962

Registration Check-inLobby, Residence Hall "720"

Banquet MeetingStudent Service Center

Presiding:Thelma Reid

Chief Librarian, City Schools LibrarySan Diego, California

Welcome to the UniversityArchie McNeal

Director, Otto F. Richter LibraryUniversity of MiamiCoral Gables, Florida

Addresses:FURNITURE SELECTION FOR THELIBRARY

Martin Van BurenInterior Planning ConsultantCharlotte, North Carolina

Edna VoigtLibrary Consultant, Library BureauRemington Rand, New York

Edward G. StrombergDesigner, John E. Sjostrom Co.Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

9:30 p.m. Library Tour and Social Hour

FRIDAY, JUNE 15, 1962

7:30 to Breakfast9:00 a.m.

8:30 to Registration Check-in10:30 a.m. Lobby, Residence Hall "720"

9:00 to10:30 a.m.

10:00 to10:30 a.m.

10:30 to11:45 a.m.

12:15 to1:45 p.m.

1:00 to2:00 p.m.

2:00 to4:00 p.m.

Visit ExhibitsOtto G. Richter Library

Coffee BreakOtto G. Richter Library

Morning ProgramUniversity College Building, Room 110

Presiding:Forrest Carhart

Asst. Director, Library TechnologyProjectAmerican Library Association

Address:EQUIPMENT AND METHODS IN CATALOGCARD REPRODUCTION

Joseph TreyzHead, New Campuses ProgramUniversity of California, La Jolla

LuncheonStudent Service Center

Visit ExhibitsOtto G. Richter Library

Afternoon ProgramUniversity College Building, Room 110

Presiding:Frazer G. Poole

Director, Library Technology ProjectAmerican Library Association

Address:BOOKSTACK SELECTION IN THELIBRARY

Keyes MetcalfLibrary ConsultantCambridge, Massachusetts

4:00 to Visit Exhibits6:00 p.m. Otto G. Richter Library

v

i

6:00 to Dinner7:45 p.m. Student Service Center

8:00 to10:00 p.m.

Evening ProgramUniversity College Building, Room 110

Panel Discussion:SPECIFICATION WRITING ANDBIDDING PROCEDURES FORFURNITURE AND SHELVING

Moderator:William S. Geller

Assistant Librarian, Los AngelesCounty Public Library

Los Angeles, California

Panel Members:Librarian's ViewpointHoyt Galvin

LibrarianPublic LibraryCharlotte, North Carolina

Shelving Manufacturer's ViewpointHome ' Lombard

Art Metal Construction Co.Jamestown, New York

Furniture Manufacturer's ViewpointHal Syren

Library BureauRemington RandNew York

SATURDAY, JUNE 16, 1962

7:30 to Breakfast9:00 a.m. Student Service Center

9:00 to11:45 a.m.

10:15 to10:45 a.m.

Consultation and Review of ExhibitsOtto G. Richter Library

Coffee BreakOtto G. Richter Library

12:15 to Luncheon1:45 p.m. Student Service Center

2:00 to3:15 p.m.

vi

Afternoon ProgramUniversity College Building, Room 110

Presiding:Frazer G. Poole

Director, Library Technology ProjectAmerican Library Association

Address:EQUIPMENT AND METHODS IN PHOTO-COPYING WITH SPECIAL EMPHASIS ONCOPYING FROM BOUND VOLUMES

William R. HawkenAuthor, "Photocopying from Bound

Volumes"

3:15 to Coffee Break3:45 p.m. Otto G. Richter Library

3:45 to Address:5:00 p.m. EQUIPMENT AND METHODS IN THE

PRODUCTION OF FULL-SIZE COPYFROM MICROTEXT

William R. Hawken

6:00 to Dinner7:45 p.m. Student Service Center

8:00 to10:00 p.m.

Panel DiscussionUniversity College Building: Room 110

A CATCH-ALL QUESTION AND ANSWERPERIOD ON EQUIPMENT WITH A PANELOF EXPERTS IN AS MANY FIELDS ASPOSSIBLE

Moderator:William S. Geller

Assistant LibrarianLos Angeles County Public LibraryLos Angeles, California

Panel Members:Forrest CarhartHoyt GalvinWilliam R. HawkenHomer LombardKeyes MetcalfFrazer PooleEdward G. StrombergHal SyrenJoseph TreyzMartin Van BurenEdna Voigt

l'i

Contents

Introduction 1

1. FURNITURE SELECTION FOR THE LIBRARY

Martin Van Buren 3

Edna Voigt 8

Edward G. Stromberg 9

2. BOOK STACK SELECTION FOR THE LIBRARY

Keyes Metcalf 15

3. PANEL DISCUSSION: SPECIFICATION WRITING AND BIDDING PROCEDURES FOR FURNITURE ANDSHELVING

Homer Lombard 27

Hal Syren 28

Hoyt Galvin 30

4. EQUIPMENT AND METHODS IN CATALOG CARD REPRODUCTION

Joseph H. Treyz 37

5. EQUIPMENT AND METHODS IN PHOTOCOPYING WITH SPECIAL EMPHASIS ON COPYING FROMBOUND VOLUMES

William R. Hawken 44

6. EQUIPMENT AND METHODS IN THE PRODUCTION OF FULL-SIZE COPY FROM MICROTEXT

William R. Hawken 50

7. PANEL DISCUSSION: A CATCH-ALL QUESTION-AND-ANSWER PERIOD ON LIBRARYEQUIPMENT 59

vii

Introduction

The Library Administration Division's Building andEquipment Section and the Library Technology Proj-ect co-sponsored the Equipment Institute held at theUniversity of Miami, Coral Gables, Florida, June 14-16, 1962. William S. Geller, Assistant Librarian ofLos Angeles County Public Library, and Frazer G.Poole, director of the Library Technology Project ofthe American Library Association were co-chairmenof the institute which was attended by 261 registereddelegates. Beside librarians from all types of li-braries, the delegates included architects and build-ing consultants, representatives of manufacturers,and library trustees. Sessions began Thursday eve-ning and ended Saturday after the evening session.

Following a banquet in the Student Service Cen-ter, the participants moved to a more comfortableand air-conditioned auditorium of the recently com-pleted Otto G. Richter Librv2y. Here, UniversityLibrarian Archie McNeal welcomed the delegates tothe University of Miami campus. The speaker for theevening was Martin Van Buren, library consultant, ofCharlotte, North Carolina, who discussed "FurnitureSelection for the Library." The topic was further de-veloped by Edna Voigt, library consultant, RemingtonRand; and Edward G. Stromberg, designer, John E.Sjostrom Co. Frazer G. Poole was the moderator.

Friday morning began with a visit to the exhibitarea set up in the library. Possibly the most dis-tinctive feature of this initial Equipment Institute wasthe arrangement of the exhibit area by type of equip-ment rather than by manufacturer. Though about 35of the principal manufacturers of library equipmentwere represented, their wares were interspersed, allbook trucks being in one area, all tables and chairsin another, etc. This was true as well as for b )okstacks (wood, and both bracket- and case-type steelshelving), and 60-drawer catalog card cabinets.There were also copying equipment and micro-readers and printers as well as laminators and booklabeling equipment displayed.

Since this large exhibit was available in the newundergraduate library within 50 feet of the auditoriumwhere the talks and panels took place, the participantswere given ample opportunity to observe and compareequipment and ask questions. Incidentally, the spa-

cious new library, because of its beautiful new furni-ture, unusual floor covering, and other distinctivefeatures, came in for its share of attention and rec-ognition. Eugene Salmon of the LTP did an excellentjob in organizing the exhibit area.

During the mid-morning program, Forrest Car-hart, assistant director of the Library TechnologyProject, introduced Joseph Treyz, Head, New Cam-puses Program, University of California, who spokeon "Equipment and Methods in Catalog Card Repro-duction."

During the afternoon program Keyes Metcalf,library consultant, Cambridge, Massachusetts, de-scribed the various types of shelving available.

The evening panel discussion on "SpecificationWriting and Bidding Procedures for Furniture andShelving" was moderated by William S. Geller; panelmembers were Hoyt Galvin, Librarian of the Char-lotte, North Carolina, Public Library, Homer Lom-bard, Art Metal Construction Company, and HalSyren, Remington Rand.

Saturday morning was made available for addi-tional consultation with the exhibitors.

Frazer G. Poole introduced William R. Hawken,document reproduction consultant, Berkeley, Califor-nia, and author of Photocopying from Bound Volumes,who was the speaker for both sessions Saturday after-noon.

The institute held its closing session after dinneron Saturday evening. William S. Geller moderated apanel including all the speakers, moderators, andpanel members of the institute. This program pro-vided an opportunity to ask questions from the panelof experts in many fields. To avoid delay, the dele-gates were asked to submit their questions on slipsprovided for this purpose before the program. Typi-cal questions were asked such as: "Have there beenany reports on the use of carpets in any libraries?""Are there inexpensive photocopy machines simpleenough for self operation by college students?" and"What device is recommended to monitor necking andpetting in the stacks of university libraries ?" Thedelegates felt that they learned a great deal aboutproblems during this two hour catch-all question-and-answer period.

1

Charles L. Morgan was the chairman of the LocalArrangements Committee, and was responsible forthe excellent accommodations. The delegates to theinstitute were comfortably housed in one of the dor-

2

mitories of the University of Miami. Registrationand general arrangements were handled by theHeadquartPrs staff of the Library AdministrationDivision, American Library Association.

1

Furniture Selection for the Library

The first meeting of the Library Equipment Instituteconvened at 7:30 o'clock on Thursday evening, June14, with Frazer G. Poole as moderator. The princi-pal speaker for the meeting was Martin Van Buren,Library Consultant, of Charlotte, North Carolina,who presented a paper on furniture selection for thelibrary. Mr. Van Buren was followed by Edna Voigt,library consultant, Remington Rand, and Edward G.Stromberg, designer, John E. Sjostrom Company,who presented further comments on the subject offurniture selection from the viewpoint of the manu-facturer. Mr. Poole was moderator for a question-and-answer period following the presentation of thethree papers.

MARTIN VAN BUREN: My earliest contactswith that seemingly awesome world of the public li-brary left me with a curious assortment of impres-sions. I can still recall the ubiquitous hiss of disci-pline, the magic of the Saturday morning story hour,those saucy rubber stamps perched on the ends ofyellow pencilsand once, a single guilt-ridden ven-ture into the adult reading room where I learned withchildish astonishment something of the intimacies ofMarie Antoinette. But more than that, I remembermusty rooms, faded Venetian blinds, darkly stainedtables and chairs. The sienna-brown oak shelvessomehow made even the books they contained seemdingy, as though one should wipe off his hands aftertouching them. In memory, the card catalog loomedlike a brooding thing and the paneled barrier of thecharging desk in itself threatened silence. More thananything else, it was the atmosphere of the librarythat my memory retained most vividly.

Yet in all my recollectionschildishly exagger-ated I am sure one point remains clear. The darkdryads of furniture did not seem out of place; theybelonged. I could never imagine airr'hing different inthe surroundings, the building, in which they reposed.Thus, I believe that even in memory, a principle as-serted itself: the furniture that appears in a libraryor in any building for that mattershould reflect theessence of the building of which it is a part.

For that reason I believe it is futile to begin adiscussion of library furniture without first exploringthe character of library buildings in America, whatmade them the way they were, and what characteris-

tics they possess today. The chronology is not with-out touches of irony, and at times even drama.

Early libraries in America had no choice but toimitate patterns of their European predecessors.Smaller libraries consisted of a central readingroom around which were alcoves containing the bookstacks. But as America grew and the need for largerlibraries became apparent, this arrangement was toorestrictive. Planners turned to more imposing Euro-pean examples, such as the Bibliotheque St. Genevieveand the Bibliotheque Nationaleboth erected in Parisduring the middle 1800'sand to a lesser degree, theBritish Museum, completed in 1857. These buildingsemployed a large reading room distinctly segregatedfrom a vast utilitarian stack area. However, asBurchard and Bush-Brown point out in their book,The Architecture of America, "None of the executionsof this plan was appropriate for American purposes,since they were designed for the comfort and peaceof the sophisticated scholar and not for the omnivo-rous reading and browsing habits of a half-literategeneral public which could hardly be trained to use acard catalog." Examples of these early plansachieved impressive architecture but contributedlittle to library operation, a matter which seemed oflittle concern to practicing architects of that day.

The first stir of discontent appeared in 1882when the American Library Association met in Cin-cinnati. During that meeting it was resolved that, "Inthe opinion of this Association the time has come fora radical modification of the prevailing typical styleof library building, and the adoption of a style of con-struction better suited to economy and practicalutility." The resolution received little public noticeat the time, and it was not until 1888, when C. A.Cutter asserted in the Library Journal that the archi-tect was the librarian's natural enemy, that reactionwas aroused. But to little avail; the architects indig-nantly proclaimed librarians "enemies of the arts,"and clung to their classic goals.

However, like a wind before a storm the crusadewas gaining momentum. In 1885 an article in theNorth American Review stated, "A very large numberof (public) buildings testify to the undoubted fact thatthe outside has been the one problem considered, theinside details being left to develop themselves. There

Furniture Selection for the Library 3

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are no public buildings of which this criticism istruer than it is of public libraries."

Then the storm broke. Aroused by the advent ofBoston's pompous new library in 1895, librariansturned critic and openly lamented the fact that archi-tects were sacrificing use and function of the libraryto superficial monumentality. Their determinationresulted in the American Library Association's"Elemental Principles of Library Planning," whichincluded the following points:1. Interior arrangement should be considered be-

fore the exterior is planned.2. Plans should provide for future growth and ex-

pansion.3. A library should be planned for economic and

efficient administration.4. Public rooms should be planned for complete

supervision by the fewest possible attendants.5. Efficient arrangement should not be sacrificed

to architectural effect.6. Decoration should be simple.7. Planning should consider economy of reader's

time.8. Ample natural light should be provided.

Following this cogent statement came an unex-pected voice of sympathy in the Library Journal of1901, when J. L. Mauran, a practicing architect, pre-scribed a three-point approach to library planning:"Select a librarian; select an architect; design the in-terior first."

But these provocations had little effect; in 1905the public library in Washington went up, a structurethat Burchard and Bush-Brown describe as, "A mam-moth affair in the new classic vein, self-indulgent ofdecoration, haughtily ignorant of utility." Occasionally, other voices were raised, such as John CottonDana's strangely prophetic, "Build a shell and be ableto change it at will." But these, too, were ignored.

It seems strange, in retrospect, that it should bethe librarians rather than the architects who soughtsimplicity and function in their buiEings. Also it isparadoxical that although American library designcontinued its march to monumentality even throughthe Carnegie era, the very libraries that had beenheld up as modelsthe Bibliotheque St. Genevieveand the Bibliotheque Nationalewere significant fore-runners of the architecture that was to come. Both,buildings displayed a daring use of iron, the firstsuch attempts in important public buildings. Slenderiron columns were left exposed and were so engi-neered that no stress was put on walls. Thus thearchitect for both buildings, Henri Labrouste, con-tributed substantially to skeletal construction sys-tems that were to open new dimensions to the art andscience of architecture.

During those years library furniture remainedan almost forgotten stepchild amidst the struggle formore realistic planning of library buildings. Typi-cally, its design followed the vision of the buildingsthat embraced it. Equipment was mostly of oak,stained dark, and was amply embellished with carv-

4 Furniture Selection for the Library

ing, paneling, and other decorations. Everywhereclassic themes were rampant. Little thought wasgiven to improving function and library furnitureremained for the most part a chauvinistic idyl of thepast. Tones were dark, scale ponderous, characteroppressive.

But conditions were not to remain static indefi-nitely. Whether the bluster from Boston began totake effect or whether influences came from othersources, a reversal in attitudes began to take place.In the Library Journal of December, 1923, architectHenry Carlson made the following comments: "Per-sonally, the idea of quiet in a library seems to meoverdone; it is not a church or a mausoleum, and Ilike it to be a cheerful place.... To my mind thestack is a regrettable necessity to the growth of alibrary, and I wish it were possible to have all bookson open shelves and accessible.... Beware of thearchitectural library; each protruding ornamentmeans just one more expense of upkeep...."

What a startling revelation that was!Four years later, in 1927, one of the most notable

revolutions in library planning was exemplified inAlvar Aalto's public library in Viipuri, Finland. Al-though virtuall7 ignored at the time, the building waslater to become recognized as one of the most signifi-cant architectural achievements of this century. Thelibrary is notable for its ingenious control of naturallight which gives a soft diffused glow over the entirereading area. In other respects as well, the Viipurilibrary reflects contemporary attitudes in planning,and its essential openness and flexibility make itcomparable to many libraries being erected today.

Library furniture, too, showed symptoms ofchange. Sienna-hued oak lightened to dirty yellow;massive table legs went on a diet; surfaces weredenuded of carvings. In book stacks, steel had comeinto its own and miracles of engineering were takingplace. Mass production techniques offered promiseof the economies of standardization and probed con-cepts of modular construction in furniture. Green'smulti-tier book stack system, developed in 1889 forthe Library of Congress, was already an establishedproduction standard. And crystal-ball conjecturesprophesied an even more dazzling future, as witnessthe following from the Library Journal of May, 1921:"Will the card catalog of the future be oral? Will atrained ear listen at the `SH' phone until 'Shake-speare' sounds, then press a button which will clickinto view an indication of the volume sought? Or willit be piano-keyboard style where manipulations ofkeys will bring an accurate and instantaneous service,such as cash registers?"

Such prophesies were not mere speculation. Var-ious devices appeared on the market, such as theSnead Automatic Book Distributor of 1930, some in-genious, others merely clever. Nevertheless therewas a restlessness in the air.

Aside from the practical reality of steel bookstacks, many of the devices were dreams of a cate-gorical nature. In the meantime, the hard facts of

T

library operation persisted. Books had not only to bestored, but cataloged and circulated as well. Patronshad to be accommodated. Reference material had tobe dealt with. Libraries had to be administered. Inkeeping with the changes that were taking place in li-brary architecture, a general assessment of qualitiesof library furniture was in order. V. L. Yust, in theJune, 1926 issue of Libraries (later quoted in Wheelerand Githens) offered his "10 Commandments of Li-brary Furniture." They are worth repeating here:

1. Purposeprompt easy accomplishment of work,free from physical distractions.

2. Materialwood (oak): metal for multi-floorstacks, staff desks, card catalog cabinets in non-public rooms, and vertical files.

3. Dimensionsuse standard dimensions for expan-sion, flexibility.

4. Designsimple, comfortable, dignified, andbeautiful. Avoid extremes. Free from elaboratecarving, sharp edges and corners that injure orchip easily.

5. Constructionof approved style according tomethods developed by library experience, givingstrength and durability.

6. Finishvarnish, wax, fume, paint, and enamel.7. Colorlight; avoid dark. Light shades diffuse

light, are more cheerful, easier to keep clean.8. Pricebetter to get less and get the best than

compromise.9. Manufacturerreliable and experienced.

(Note: Wheeler-Githens lists only nine; I have notascertained what became of Yust's 10th).

Although some of Yust's requisites might be sub-ject to qualification today, it is significant that someattempt was made at the time to define standards ofquality that might serve as a guide to librarians andpurchasers of library furniture, for up to that time,remarkably little had been written on the subject.Whether this was because library furniture was con-sidered a subject too commonplace to require com-ment, or whether it was taken for granted that libraryfurniture had already reached its ultimate solution,one cannot say. In any case, Yust seemed to besearching haphazardly without benefit of a basicthesis.

'.,:o begin at the beginning, we might ask: Whatare we seeking in the realm of library furniture?Tools, perhaps, that will better enable us to carryout the functions of our libraries, not only today butin the years to come? Tools that also give us asense of pride and pleasure in their very existence?What, then, ought to be the essence of these tools?

One effort to a pproach a basic conclusion onqualities of library furniture was made when HoytGalvin and I suggested the following evaluation inour UNESCO manual on library planning: furnitureshould be functional, it should be durable, it shouldbe beautiful. Other factors such as cost naturallyhave a bearing, but do not these three elements pro-vide a basic thesis?

The definition is not original. It has always been

the measure of successful architecture, dating backsome 2,000 years when Vitruvius described thesefactors as utility, strength, and grace. The wordsdiffer but the meanings are identical, and they applywith equal importance to any artistic endeavor thatserves a special need, whether it be architecture orthe less romantic but no less utilitarian province oflibrary furniture.

The first of these requirements, function, simplyindicates what the object in question is supposed todo how efficiently it performs its task. Comfort,convenience, and serviceability relate to function.Any competent designer begins with questions offunction, then seeks methods of performing thosefunctions better. Indeed, the much-discussed "writ-ten program" for a library building is essentially astatement of functional requirements, and the earlystruggle between librarians and architects over theexecution of their buildings was one of functionversus beautyesoteric beauty, perhaps, but never-theless beauty.

When architect Louis Sullivan made his classicstatement that "Form Follows Function," aestheteswere dismayed at the idea that the pagan god of utilityshould dominate their sacrosanct domain of beauty:they argued the point vigorously and still do. YetSullivan was not deserting the proponents of beauty:he was merely stating that utility is the more defini-tive and restrictive of the two elements and thereforemust be the derivative force. Artistry, being limit-less and beyond inhibition, could still offer vast free-dom of expression. Perhaps Sullivan was taking toomuch for granted in assuming that today's designercould cope with both.

Thus it is essential that we learn to view thequality of function as an objective within itself, to becorrelated with the elements of beauty and durabilityonly after its own problem7 are understood. In publiclibraries such a viewpoint is certainly obvious, forthe function of its operation and furniture is quite ap-parent. Until the science of electronics and computersystems revolutionizes library operation, the basicfunction of its equipment will remain essentially thesame, and any improvements in library furniture de-sign must be technological improvements evolvingfrom identical functional requirements. Even so,what a vast realm of unexplored possibilities pre-sents itself!

Function exists as a quality only as long as itsutilitarian v......ues remain. When structural weak-nesses occurwhen tables wobble, chairs sag, cardcatalog trays stickthen function fails. Thus dura-bility assumes a vital role in the basic quality of li-brary furniture. Inherent sturdiness is a factor thatnot only sustains the elements of function (and alsobeauty), but concerns economic aspects of mainte-nance and eventual replacement as well. This is apoint not to be overlooked; the lasting durability ofits furniture is of particular importance in a librarywhich is exposed to public use and abuse for count-less hours, week in and week out.


Much too often in the selection of library furni-ture initial strength becomes the sole criterion ofdurability. "Look how strong this is!" cries thesalesman as he hammers frantically on his latestpride-and-joy. But what of tomorrow, of next year,and the years after that? How well will this pride-and-joy resist burns, stains, scars, loosening ofjoints, fading, cracLing, splitting, warping, or down-right collapse?

The prognosis is not a facetious one. Nor is itone that requires further comment, for the quality ofdurability seems to be the one element most deeplyrooted in the consciousness of librarians and mem-bers of building committees. The sturdy oak chair ofthe past has left its markan almost ineradicablemarkon the library scene. The impact is not with-out merit and might prove conclusive if durabilitywere the only concern of the public libraryits soleresponsibility to the community it serves. But as inthe past, when architectural beautification aloneproved insufficient as a means to successful librarybuildings, so does the element of durability by itselffail to achieve that which we seek.

The third quality, beauty, is not so simple to ex-plain. The dictionary describes beauty as that qualitywhich gives pleasure to the senses or pleasurablyexalts the mind or spirit. The enigma behind such adefinition is that the quality which pleases one indi-vidual might not please another, and we are facedwith that fanciful pixy known as "taste." Battles havebeen fought over this conundrum and the fact that"taste" is a matter of education appears of little helpin resolving differences.

Attempts have been made, without much success,to define beauty in practical terms. Reference isoften made to scale, line, style, proportion, balance,and so forth, without arriving at a neat conclusion.There is one vital element of beauty, however, thatis of particular importance: that is an harmoniousrelationship of parts to the whole. In the case of li-brary furniture, this is important not only within theinherent elements of the design itself but also in thedesign relationship of furniture to the architecturalcharacter of the building of which it is a part. Thesecret of any beautiful library lies in this harmoniousblend of visual elements which together add up to agraceful result. Therefore, in selecting furniture fora public library, look first to its architectural con-cept, envision the scale of its areas, and the atmos-phere to be achieved.

These comments on beauty are an oversimplifica-tion; they are not enough. Perhaps we must resignourselves to the comment made by a prominent artcritic who remarked that any example of true beautypossesses "that certain something" which reachesbeyond the basic rules.

In our quest for the meanings of beauty, durabil-ity, and function, an example might be made of thenew United Nations Library in New York. Althoughnot a public library, its furnishings neverthelessprovide an interesting analysis.


As for beauty, it is a triumph. No efforts werespared in its aesthetic execution, both as to architec-ture and furnishings. The built-in card catalog in theWoodrow Wilson Roomsome thirty feet longistruly elegant with its rare African wenge wood faceand trim. In the main reading area, shelving andfurniture are of beautifully finished white oak. Rugsof special design lie thickly beneath graceful tablesand chairs. Although costly, the important elementto note is the congruity of the library's furnishingswith its architectural atmosphere. A certain serenityof character was obviously intended and successfullyachieved by the use of natural woods and soft colors.Here indeed is an atnk,)sphere conducive to seriousstudy, reflecting the dignity that such a libraryshould possess.

As for durability, no judgment can be made atthis time. Much of the library furniture, includingshelving, was designed by the architect and construc-tion details cannot be determined by the casual visitor.In any case, extreme durability is not a key issuehere; the United Nations library undoubtedly will re-ceive less abuse than the average living roomescap-ing such exuberances as cocktail parties, pets, andthe reckless abandon of the blue-jean set.

The test of function evokes quite a different pic-ture. The handsome card catalog cabinet in the Wood-row Wilson Room is so designed that none of the toprow of trays will open they are blocked by decorativetrim! The card catalog in the main reading room, Iwas told, had to be returned and rebuilt because itsoriginal design would not accommodate guide cards.Shelves in the beautiful oak book stacks are not ad-justable and thus will not accommodate certain pub-lished material, which must therefore be shelvedelsewhere; I shudder to think of the complicationsthis must cause in systematic shelving and catalog-ing! The lending desk adjacent to the main entry isnot large enough to permit the needed work stations.Furthermore, the circulation area in front of it islittle more than a corridor and is already a bottleneckto patron traffic. How right was James Gerould whenhe stated in 1932 that, "Architecturally the area be-fore and behind the desk is the most difficult to en-large!"

To my mind these are grave and inexcusableerrors, signifying the failure of an otherwise signifi-cant library. The tragedy is magnified by the inter-national significance of this particular library, and Ican only speculate that its basic failure was due tothe lack of a coherently organized planning team.Could this indeed be a retrogression to the early daysof library architecture when prima donna complexesreigned at the cost of coordinated efforts? Althoughit is commendable that an attempt was made to ex-plore the stylized library furniture that has becomesuch a cliche today, the dereliction was apparentlydue either to a lack of comprehension of the functionalproblems involved, or sheer carelessnessquite pos-sibly both.

This is not to claim that standardization is

necessarily either a cliche or bad; it is in fact un-avoidable in a special environment conditioned byeconomic necessity to its technology. The strugglefor individuality thus becomes one of constantly cre-ating new forms, new uses, new adaptations basedupon progressively changing production techniques.This requires imagination, initiative, and vision toprevent the products we create from becoming stag-nant, even being caught between a nostalgia forpseudo-images of some distant past and a febrilepursuit of sameness. The latter appears to be trueof library furniture today, which has stripped awaythe ornamentation of its past but accomplished littleelse. True, the industry has. taken advantage of de-velopments in production technique in order to turnout its products more efficiently, or faster, orcheaper, but the products themselves remain essen-tially the same. Fifty years ago the original SneadCompany was producing both standard and brackettype shelving, multi- as well as single-tier, in bothsteel and iron. Before the turn of the century, theold Library Bureau firm was making wood libraryequipment that in structure was virtually the sameas that produced by library furniture makers todayexcept that its catalog offered an imported bentwoodlibrary chair for $2.50, ... "Domestic ModelsSlightly Less."

Some fifteen years ago the Cooperative Commit-tee on Library Building Plans, initiated at PrincetonUniversity, anticipated radical departures in methodsof library operation, taking as its measure spectacu-lar advances in other fields. At that time, during themid-1940's, the Committee asserted, "The problemof the designer of a library to be built in the next fiveyears is one of planning a building which will sufficeif we are limited to the pedestrian resources ofpresent-day practice, and yet one which will not pre-vent a rapid shift from this practice to take advantageof new instruments." A year later the Committeeagain expressed its optimism 'Clen it urged: "By allmeans let the librarian become aware of new possi-bilities...."

Today, almost two decades later, we must stillask, "What 'new' instruments? What 'new' possibil-ities?"

The need goes deeper than improvements in pro-duction efficiency, or alterations in styling, which arenothing more than putting a new fender on an old Ford.It is uncomfortable, here in a nation noted for itsproduct ingenuity, to reflect on the comment made inthe London Architectural Review that today's maximappears to be, "Form Follows Sales."

Where does this leave the librarian faced withthe responsibility of selecting furniture for his newlibrary? Unfortunately, he is left with very little togo on other than manufacturers' catalogs and a fewelemental principles. A search of the periodicalindex as far back as 1900 discloses a distressinglymeager smattering of references on the subject oflibrary furniture or equipment. With the exceptionof Wheeler and Githens' estimable document, works

on library planning rarely mention the subject offurniture. Four years ago Hoyt Galvin and I soughtthe aid of UNESCO representatives throughout theworld in our search for material on library planningand furnishing; only one volume of note was acquired:German Author Werner Mevisson's Public LibraryBuilding. A recent search of the New York PublicLibrary's files produced virtually nothing on libraryfurniture. Inquiry of one of Europe's leading bookdealers brought a negative reply. The published com-pilation of the Princeton Cooperative Committee dis-cussions makes no mention of library furniture orequipment, either in context or in its index. TheAmerican Librar i Association's Library TechnologyProject, although making efforts to assess presentlibrary equipment, rightfully has no intention of at-tempting redesign or improvement of library furni-turethe Project's task of mere analysis is monu-mental enough as it is. On a broader front, LewisMumford's exhaustive study, The City in History,devotes only a few paragraphs to library systems ingeneral. And Max Lerner's vast sociological work,America as a Civilization, does not even mention theword "library" in 950 pages covering every conceiv-able aspect of American society including our litera-ture and our reading habits!

Not only in its furniture and equipment, but in itstotal form, is the American public library, past andpresent, so insignificant that its existence is beyondrecognition in any sociological aspect?

To touch on a lighter subject, my search for ma-terial on library furniture has not been without itsrewards. An essay on library furniture published in1933 lists the following topics for consideration:drinking fountains; electrical bell communication be-tween lending desk and office; floor heaters; conven-ient storage of broom and dust pan; location of lightswitch box; lawn sprinklers; location of master keyto building; outdoor signs; location of mail box; im-portance of picture molding; location of clock; posi-tion of outdoor flag pole.

How can one remain frustrated after findingsuch a gem as this?

In a discussion of such limited length, the broadsubject of library furniture can at best comprise gen-eralities, and delineate little more than basic princi-ples. As we pursue the subject through its historicalenvironment to the increasingly complex problems ofpresent-day library practice, the value of professionalconsultants in this field becomes vividly clear. Sucha consultant is an important member of the planningteam. However, our purpose here is to offer adviceto those librarians who must face the problem offurniture selection alone, unaided by professionalhelp. By way of assistance I have listed a few basicpoints:

1. At an early stage, develop a comprehensivelist of those items of equipment needed to fulfill thefunctions of the particular library involved; this isthe basic "inventory" and should be constantly re-viewed and revised as the project progresses.


2. Study thoroughly all available library equip-ment catalogs.

3. Also study literature and catalogs from furni-ture makers whose products are intended for othertypes of institutions, searching for adaptations thatmight lend themselves to library use. In the wordsof Philip Wylie, "Think in other categories."

4. Become aware of furniture problems and howthey have been solved in other types of institutions.Visit contemporary banks, hospitals, business firms;inquire about equipment problems they have encoun-tered and how they achieved their own solutions.Often such problems have similarities to those en-countered in libraries.

5. Maintain a comprehensive file of such ob-servations and their potential application to libraryfurnishing problems; keep notes as to sources and,when available, cost data.

6. Assess every library furniture possibility byapplying the tests of function, durability, and beauty.

7. In making final decisions, seek harmony ofdesign and compatibility with the architectural con-cept of the buildingin form, material, color, andfinish.

It will be noted that these suggestions encouragean awareness of institutional buildings other than li-brariesone interpretation, perhaps, of the Coopera-tive Committee's admonishment to "Let the librarianbecome aware of new possibilities." Although certainfunctions of the library are peculiar to that institu-tion, in other ways, the library does not stand aloneas an isolated adjunct of society.

No possibility must be overlooked, for the taskof equipping our libraries to meet the increasinglyexacting standards they uphold in the cultural environ-ment of America cannot be underrated. The challengeis without end, and we must continue to look for newideas and new leadership as we seek endlessly themeans to make our libraries better.

EDNA VOIGT: The heavy oak furniture of fortyyears ago is the natural image which remains of thelibraries of that period because it is what manufac-turers illustrated in their publications as their stand-ard line. But to round out the picture, there was alarge amount of custom work produced which was notrecorded in catalogs. I remember reproductions oflovely old English Tudor tables at Northwestern Uni-versity. More often, equipment was especially de-signed to harmonize with the architecture of the build-ingsuch as the Duncan Phyfe for the D.A.R. inWashington, the Gothic for Fordham University, theEarly American for the River Forest Library inIllinois, the Colonial for Avon, Connecticut, theJacobean, Spanish, and Georgian. Considering theperiods in which one could work, the past was almostless monotonous than some of the Contemporary worktoday. And one was less tempted to be sensational inorder to be original.

The dollar has shrunk to the point where it wouldbe impossible to duplicate the buildings of the past,and also much of the furniture. Where for instance,


could one find skilled wood carvers today? We arelucky that greater attention to functional planning,new materials, and scientific advancementsuch asin the field of air-conditioningpaves the way fornew solutions. But paying attention to the past canprovide us with a truer sense of values.

As new library buildings multiply, so it seems,does the tendency on the part of designers to strivefor uniqueness in the appearance of the equipment.Eye appeal is paramount. Just as the attractivecolor of a bathroom or a kitchen may clinch the saleof a house while the quality of construction receivesscant consideration, so may a reading table chair beselected with complete disregard for the comfort ofthe user. In some cases, the reader may just aswell be seated on a backless stool.

Nevertheless, this urge on the part of interiordesigners is a spur to library furniture manufactur-ers. We too take pride in creativeness. New ideasare taking shape, such as an interchangeability pro-gram which will enable a plant to offer more designswithout increasing manufacturing costs.

The two main scientific advancements which havecontributed to the quality of wood equipment are elec-tronic gluing and synthetic finishes.

Frequently we are asked for the comparativevalue of wood versus high pressure laminates fortable or desk tops. The choice depends upon thequalities most important to you.

Formica, Textolite, Micarta, Parkwoocl, Conso-weld, etc., are simply trade names of different manu-facturers for their own products. All of them mustmeet the minimum specifications of NEMA, the Na-tional Electrical Manufacturers Association.

High pressure laminates are harder than woodand provide a miserable writing surface if one usesa single sheet rather than a pad. For reading tables,therefore, wood tops might be preferable. On theother hand, high pressure laminates might provemore satisfactory for circulation desks and catalogconsultation tables where there is constant abrasionfrom books and trays.

Neither high pressure laminates nor wood areindestructible. All one need do is observe the highpressure laminate counter tops in coffee shops. Manytimes you will find nicks and wearing off of patterns.

High pressure laminates cannot be repaired aseasily as wood. True, repair kits are now available,but manufacturers admit that these are not veryhelpful when used on plain colors.

Because of the hardness of high pressure lami-nates, binding the edges of table tops with them isquestionable. It may result in damage to the chairs.In one library where a great deal of thought wasgiven to this, Formica was used on the edges, but theedges of the tables were sloped at the same angle asthe back posts of the chairs. Thus a chair might hita flat surface, but not an edge. Even this, in additionto being far more troublesome to do because pressescould not handle a slope, was not entirely foolproof.The best bet seems to be a wood edge on table tops.

For those who love wood, the real thing has abeauty that cannot be imitated. Thus, are thereplaces where high pressure laminates might bepreferable? Yesyou might, for example, wish tointroduce some color in a children's room. Thentoo, high pressure laminates are quite practical onoccasional or coffee tables. Be prepared for extrahousekeeping, however, if white tops are used onreading tables.

The use of lounge furniture or upholstered read-ing table chairs entails the choice of a covering.Leathers and plastics are used more commonly thanfabrics, although the latter can be effective. Manypeople already have their minds made up in favor ofone or the other of these materials. If you are amongthem, there is no reason why you should not have whatyou want. If you are undecided, here are a few pointsto consider with respect to leather and plastic:1. Pricing. Comparative pricing might vary be-

tween different manufacturers. This is why:Plastics are purchased by the yard, and may beordered in the exact quantity needed. There isno waste. Leather, on the other hand, is boughtby the hide. If leather is required for only a fewpieces, there is wastage. Supply houses that donot stock leather would have no further use forthe left-overs; the entire hide must be added tothe price. On the other hand, houses that dostock leather expect more orders for the samething. There is no wastage. What is left from ahide goes back into stock. Therefore, the pricedifferential (between leather and plastic) issmaller when quoted by houses that stock leath-ers, but the cost will be somewhat higher thanthat for plastic.

2. Durability. On this point, some people's mindsare already made up, perhaps, because of per-sonal experience, or because they have been con-vinced by a highly geared sales promotion pro-gram. Materials purchased .ring World War IImay have suffered in quality because manufactur-ers or tanners could not secure the properchemicals.

When I explored the subject some time ago, Ilearned that the Bureau of Standards in Washing-ton had not made any tests to compare thestrength of leather and plastics. The only im-partial laboratory test of which I have knowledgeis one reported by the Leather Upholstery Group.This report which came from the U.S. TestingLaboratory rated leather as 77 percent strongerin general; 151 percent stronger along seams;and 37 percent better at holding its shape.What about cracking? This was a problem someyears ago when leather was finished almost en-tirely in nitrocellulose. Competition from plasticmanufacturers spurred the leather industry tofurther research. The newer resinous finishkeeps leather soft and flexible. Leather may becleaned with mild soap and water. I recentlyqueried the U.S. Rubber Company about cleaning

light color Naugahydes, and they recommendedstrong detergents. I have not had any personalexperience regarding the effect of these.

3. Color. There is a wide selection in both plasticand leather.

4. Comfort. Both leather and plastics are hotterthan fabrics. Personally, I would rate plasticeven the breatheable varietyas hotter thanleather. Different people may be affected dif-ferently, and, of course, air-conditioning inbuildings may make this factor less important.

5. Beauty. I doubt that there is any question aboutthe superior elegance of leather, even amongthose who select plastic.EDWARD G. STROMBERG: We have a Toy De-

partment in Philadelphia in which we use scale-modelfurniture for library planning. The models are builtat a half-inch to one-foot scale. The arrangementlooks like a Lilliputian Library, and it never ceasesto fascinate me. Many people say, "This is the wayto do it," and whenever it is geographically possible,we invite the librarians to be the chief "toy pushers."None of them have ever left without the feeling thatthey have compressed weeks of work into a few hours.This service puts us in an excellent position to ob-serve the trends, and to be part of the move towardsnew ideas, construction, materials, and if I may sayso (hesitantly), design.

Mr. Van Buren claims that furniture needs to becompletely redesigned. It seems as though we oughtto start with people.

I saw a house at Disneyland, the whole of whichhas been molded in fiberglass. The furniture cameout in lumps from the floor. The television set wasmolded in the wall. It wasn't very flexible, but whenyou bought the house you had everything.

So, design trends begin as conversational piecesand then become controversial. The "Dean of Li-brarians," as many call him, and I'm sure you knowwho he is, lectured me roundly and soundly in Mon-treal about the "infernal triangle." His referencewas to a triangular table which we had designed foran exhibitas a gimmickto have the librarians doa "double take" as they walked by and ask, "What isit?" The "gimmick" turned out to be so successfulthat it became a regular item. I don't know how Mr.Van Buren regards the triangular table, but we'vemade hundreds of them since.

Miss Voigt covered the plastic laminates prettywell. I think I can skip that subject. However, Ihave seen chair backs gouged badly by sharp edging.Let us consider the question of various types of wood.The lectern at which I'm standing is done very well.It has a veneered top with an exposed band protectingthe top veneer which, at the most, could be a six-teenth of an inch thick.

If this top veneer continued to the eage and hadbeen rounded to even an eighth-of-an-inch radius,then there would be a feather edge on the veneer.This would be the first point of wear and chipping.

Some of our competitors use birch and some


maple as we do. We also like walnut, in its properplace. In finishing, some use lacquer; others usecatalytic varnish. Some manufacturers may even beconsidering one of the new polyesters, which is aprocess of creating a plastic laminate directly onthe table top.

Earlier, Mr. Poole and I discussed the trend to-ward oiled walnut. He asked the blunt question, "Doyou approve of this?" I do. For years, I have usedit in my living room. Then the question, "What aboutthe low light reflectance value of the top, a valuewhich lighting engineers seem to consider too low?"Our answer is to use a neutral beige vinyl readingarea with oiled walnut end banding that blends wellwith any color you put in the library.

Observe the table in our exhibit that Miss Voigtrefers to as our "Wrap-around" table. I will admitthat you can't smoke at this table without an ashtrayand you can't polish your fingernails without beingcareful. It makes a beautiful, resilient, writing sur-face. It not only protects its own edges but also pro-tects the chairs. It is not an exclusive item with theSjostrom Company.

There has been little mention of the cores ofveneer and plastic surfaced table tops.

The producers of one of the plastic laminates ismaking a high-density chip board. This does not re-duce the weightthe shipping weightparticularly;however, it does reduce the cost somewhat. Withthis board we are using a new fastener, whose nameI will not mention. However, it held the fire wall onthe space capsule in which Carpenter went up, and ifit will hold that, it will hold a leg on any table.

This brings us to the question of legs on thetable. The current era in library furniture is knownas the "metal cycle." The reason for this "metalcycle" is a step towards the ultimate; that is to main-tain a reading top at a 28- or 29-inch altitude with novisible support. We are diligently searching for aPersian to design a table on the same principle as hismythical flying carpet.

To reverse the flight from fancy to metallurgy,numerous metal supports are available. There isplain steel, welded, with a baked enamel finish.There is aluminum with anodized or clear epoxy fin-ish. And then there is stainless steel witich needsno finish.

A librarian visited the plant not long ago whodidn't like our tables or some of our competitors'tables because the fastenings between the legs andthe stretchers were exposed. Now, an Allenheadbolt is about the most unobtrusive fastener you canuse. You can countersink it level with the surfaceand make the base demountable.

Welded construction is fine and the points in itsfavor are that it is strong and there are no visiblefasteners. The bad part is that it is space-consumingand damage-prone on a long-range shipment. You canship only about eight tables in a van where normallyyou might get thirty-six. On the other hand, the de-mountable type, which most of the manufacturers are


using, is more flexible and less costly because it canbe mass-produced as a parts programsomething Ithink Miss Voigt was alluding to when she said somesort of "standardization."

The advantages of demountable tables are quiteapparent: you can ship them easily 12,500 miles inany direction. That is half way around the world,isn't it?

We move to circulation, charging desks, or refer-ence desks, or whatever the specific area requiresthey be called. There is some controversy as towhether 26 or 36 inches should be the standard widthof the sectional unit. In a small library that requiresnumerous services within the desk, a 26-unit providesthe maximum service in a smaller area. The 36-inchunit provides the maximum work top at the least costin a larger area. Most manufacturers will make both.The top width seems to generate a little less contro-versy. A top width of 27 inches seems to be an ex-cellent average. Of course, material for the top is amatter of customer choice. There is linoleum, theold stand-by; there are veneers, the plastic laminates,the flexible vinyl sheet, and, of course, marble, if youcan afford it.

Now, why go to marble or something like that fora charging desk? Because, in most universities andhigh schoolseven in the public librariesyou haveto "rebuff the buckle brigade." Some manufacturershave come up with the idea of a buffer bar.

I would suggest that the material used for thisbuffer bar be a different material from that used forthe top of the desk. The buffer bar is there to pro-tect the top; it must be replaced eventually and, if itis of a different material, the replacement will notbe so apparent.

Speaking of individualizing circulation desks, Iwould say that the architect could have his choice ofanything from exotic woods to a millwork match.The new design of the charging desk by most manu-facturers is more or less a shell design with a sur-face insert. The sectional unit has a leg or a closedbase, as you prefer. With some of the desks, you canchange your mind about what kind of base you want upuntil the time of installation. Even when you re-position a desk, you can change from a closed legbase or vice versa.

A desk manufactured with the accurate machiningthat can only be accomplished with the new woodwork-ing machines is a far more flexible desk in its sec-tional unit, and it serves its purpose much moreadequately than the immovable, unexpandable, mill-work monument.

To cover the last item (and no doubt you willhave more)the card catalog: There seems to be atrend away from the "high-rise" card catalog towardthe "ranch style." The newer style makes for betterdistribution of traffic, better visual control, and theelimination of the reference table.

What we are suggesting now is to use the top of alow-silhouette card catalog unit. You not only savemoney, but it is esthetically more interesting.

QUESTION: Assuming that you have a specificamount of money, I would like to ask the entire panel,which would they choose: custom-built furniture orstandard furniture? I am speaking in terms of thesmall library which is being furnished for manyyears to come. Should they go for fewer items atgreater cost or try to furnish the library with asmuch as they can for less money.

MR. VAN BUREN: I tried to make one pointclear, but perhaps I didn't. I would say to a librarianwho is selecting furniture and who does not have aprofessional designer or consultantand by that, Iinclude professional engineers who represent manu-facturers as wellstay away from special designs.Stay on safe ground and do your purchasing fromstandard library catalogs. You are buying certainpieces of equipment that are going to be there forten or twenty years. Stick to the tested products.

It may not be, as I said, a "design of tomorrow,"but it would be a safe design and it would be a safeway of spending the money. If you have sufficientbudget to afford professional consults, designers, orexperienced people, then, all right; perhaps you couldexperiment with custom designs. We have v.dually,in many jobs, saved clients a good deal of money byusing certain tricks of special design, but that takesa lot of know-how and a lot of experience.

I also happen to know that, in certain instances,accomplished engineers, who work for manufacturers,can show you short cuts, but this is true only if yourely on experienced engineers.

MISS VOIGT: I agree with Mr. Van Buren thatyou should, by all means, stick with established,standard items, but I would suggest that you alsoconsult manufacturers, because they may be able todo something a little different for you with standardparts, something that may not affect your cost toomuch. But if you are going into a small amount offurniture of special design, I think you would sacrificesome of the quality that you get from mass produc-tion, where manufacturers can afford the machineryfor precision work.

MR. STROMBERG: At the risk of being preju-diced, I say please stick to the catalog. However, asMiss Voigt mentioned, the parts program has beendeveloped among most of the manufacturers for thatvery reasonto give you exactly what you want at theminimum cost.

MR. VAN BUREN: May I make a final comment?I could use as an illustration one library that we didin Gaston County, North Carolina, whose budget wasroughly about 50 percent of what we considered theminimum. It was a model project, and by using cer-tain tricks, we saved them what was later estimatedby a library equipment manufacturer about $1,200 onthe lending desk alone, by adapting certain things andusing certain custom-made items. But, again, I sayit must be done by someone who knows these tricksof the trade.

QUESTION: I have observed the trend, whichseems to be fairly popular, of going to the dark

furniture. I would like members of the panel tocomment upon the appearance and durability of thedark furniture.

MR. POOLE: The gentleman asks for thepanel's comments on the attractiveness and dura-bility of dark furniture. If I may, let me add a ques-tion of my own that relates to this: For many years,librarians have been concerned with the proper re-flectance of table tops, because they are consciousof the fact that it is difficult for the eyes to adjustquickly when they look from a very dark surface or,at the other end of the spectrum, from a highly re-flective surface, to a sheet of paper. The Society ofIlluminating Engineers has established a standardwhich indicates that a reflectance of between 35 and50 percent of the light falling on that surface is con-sidered optimum. For the past few years, our me-dium color finishes in furniture have been within thisrange. Now, we come to an apparent trend or fad inwhich we are accepting the very dark, oiled walnutfinishes. I understand that these finishes have a re-flectance value of about 15 percent, that f s, 20 percentbelow the accepted standard of 35 percent. In com-menting on the question about dark furniture, I hopeour panel will also comment on this shift away fromthe standard for light reflectance on the surfaces oflibrary table tops.

Mr. Van Buren, would you like to start on this?MR. VAN BUREN: First, in my own opinion, as

an individual consultant, I do not believe in exploringthese problems (even with certain statistical factsabout reflectance values) without consultation withall of the architects and engineers involved in a proj-ect, and I want to say that that is most important. Ithink every building has its own particular problems.One factor is the building's light values, which relate,of course, to ceiling heights and other things. (I thinkthere are problems other than those immediately con-nected with light conditions tY. ;:he lighting engineersand architects have consideret ,) The time intervalthat the people are going to be using the reading sur-face is a factorthat is, whether it is going to be avery brief period of time or not. And so the firstpoint as I said, is, that I do not consider, as a con-sultant, that I am a consultant standing by himself.I repeat what I have saidwhat Hoyt Galvin and I havewrittenthat the success of any library depends uponthe cooperative action of a planning team, and thatmeans everybody: lighting engineers, architects, thewhole group.

My second general thought is that there is a validpoint to be made about using very dark surfaces forreading on white paper where there is strong con-trast. In many of our own libraries, we try to usethe darker, richer woods in surfaces, not necessarilyonly for reading tables. We might make a card cata-log cabinet of a rich wood. We might work with thearchitect in trying to install some paneling in darksurfaces. Very often, we will contrast light and darkwoods. Although there are some exceptions, in thegreat majority of cases, you can have your writing


'II

surfaces light and still use your dark luxuriouswoods. We are doing some libraries now in which wehave used the walnut bases and legs with light surfacetops, perhaps a light gray Formica, or a similar sur-face. I am not here to quibble about particular sur-faces. I can say that you can still have light writingsurfaces and you can still introduce the richness ofyour woods.

Illustrations can be taken from this very room,where you have some very nice, rich, wood paneling,which gives you the over-all effect of wood, and thesoftness of woods, too. If this were a room withreading tables, you might have the reading tableseither a light wood or a light color; so you see, thereare a lot of possibilities. However, I want to go backto that one basic point and that is the importance ofthe cooperation of the planning team, every singlemember.

MISS VOIGT: I believe that finishes on darkwood wear equally well as those on light woods.Some years ago, these suggestions of the illuminatingengineers were taken very seriously, and we have oneperiod where libraries were quite pastel. The furni-ture was light, the floors were light, the walls werelight colored, and they were just plain anemic. Ispoke then to somebody at the Eye Institute in NewYork, and they offered the suggestion that people'seyes vary just the same as people do; that some peo-ple require more light than other people. Therefore,I think that if you use the recommendation of theselighting engineers and temper it with common senseand experience, you will get more interesting in-teriors.

As Mr. Van Buren said, you can be particularabout your reading table tops. Perhaps you oughtalso to consider the floor, especially where it re-flects light on the lower titles of book shelves, but,certainly, elsewhere around the room. In the loungefurniture there is a wonderful opportunity to intro-duce contrast.

MR. POOLE: Mr. Stromberg has already spokento this point. I wonder if he would like to make afurther comment.

MR. STROMBERG: Just one short one. Thegentleman asked whether the dark finishes on thelight wood hold up. Well, if you use a penetratingoil stain initially, and a good catalytic varnish on topof it, they will work out fine. However, if you usewalnut to start with and you oil iteven with the blue-jean setthere isn't a nick or scratch on those chairsafter five years of use.

COMMENT FROM THE FLOOR: I am not anexpert or a specialist, but I would like to say that wehave been aware of this problem for some three orfour years; we have tables in the old portion of ourlibrary which are a light color and a light surface.The students complain about the glare on those tables.I had the paint foreman for the university go cver andlook at them. He told me we had a hard varnish onthere and it naturally reflected light, but it wouldwear so much longer. I said, "Can you take it off and


put on a dull finish that will absorb and not reflect?"And he said, "Yes, but we will have to do it aboutevery six months."

I said, "Fine. Go ahead and do it." And I hadthat problem in mind when we started with the furni-ture. We have discussed it as we went along, andthe table tops are not yet what we want. There is areflectance factor of about 49 percent on this surface.We have worked with the manufacturers on it. Theyhave approached the maker of the plastic laminates,one of which has been used on these tables, and wefeel that we have the solution to it. I can say thatsome treatment and rubbing of those tables is re-quired to bring the surface down to a lower reflect-ance rate.

COMMENT FROM THE FLOOR: This questionwas considered in planning this particular building.As you know, this building is still under construction.The men are working outside tonight on the lights, onthe outside portion of the building, as you can see.There are many things inside the building too, thatare still being worked on, as you can also see whenyou go through it, but the p,'oblem of furniture surfacereflectance was one which we discussed no more thanten days ago with the manufacturer.

They said they would have the factory personneldown here, would have the job done in four and a halfdays for us. I told them that that was too tight aschedule, and to let everyone of you look at it andsee the various pieces of furniture as they are, be-cause I like them, and afterwards we will do what isnecessary to reduce whatever reflectance factor wehave, if it should be desirable.

MR. POOLE: I raised the point, not because ofthe dark tables which have been used here, but be-cause this is a question which has been asked of theLibrary Technology Project several times during thelast few months. Just two weeks ago we had a letterfrom a purchasing agent in New England who saidthere were a number of libraries who were consider-ing this question and they wanted some answer. Thereal question was: Is the trend one which is beingpushed by designers or by manufacturers and arethe standards of the Illuminating Engineers Societybeing ignored. This seemed an opportunity to getsome comments from the people on tonight's panelwho should know about this problem of reflectance.Some very interesting points have been brought outin this discussion. I don't know that the question isfully answered, but I think we do have more informa-tion on the matter than most of us had at the beginning.

QUESTION: This will probably be directed toyou, Mr. Poole, as much as to anyone else. It dealswith the principle of function. So much has been doneand written in the field of work simplification, andthis appears to be the important part. In library fur-niture for example, circulation desks have been de-signed that have special storage compartments totake care of some of the clutter which automaticallyappears on top of such desks. In addition, one of ourequipment manufacturers recently has gone into the

kl

development of workroom furniture. I should like toask whether, in the future, the major manufacturersplan to go more into the functional aspects of design,aside from that which has been done so well on thecirculation desk? Or, because of the vast differencein methods and procedure, is this primarily a re-sponsibility of the individ:Lal library?

MR. POOLE: Summing this up: The questionasks whether library furniture can be designed so thatit is functional and whether the manufacturers aregiving more thought to this aspect of furniture design.I think the question is directed primarily to the manu-facturers' representatives and to our independent de-signer. Is there a trend, or is it expected that in thefuture more attention will be paid to designing tablesand desks so that they are more functional?

MR. STROMBERG: I believe that the question wasdirected toward workroom furniture more than towardreading area furniture. I happen to know the manu-facturer of whom he is speaking who is making thisvery inexpensive shelving, and so forth, for the work-room. I speak for myself and my company, particu-larly. At this point, we can't exactly compete with themanufacturer on those ideas. I have often wanderedin as a lone figure in library workrooms, and I wantto tell you that the furnishings and equipment are justas different as women's hats. The thing defies me.Maybe Miss Voigt or Mr. Van Buren has an answer.

MR. VAN BUREN: Well, I made certain criti-cisms this evening about the progress that has beenmade in the last sixty years and I made a very ex-tensive search through library channels and libraryequipment catalogs as far back as 1901. For roughlythe last eight months, on my own, I have been devotinga lot of time to the study of the function of some ofthese pieces of library equipment, such as the lendingdesk. I have developed some ideas which I think areonly a beginning. I don't know where I am going to go.I am not a manufacturer. I have had patent searchesmade in Washington, and the result is that these sim-ple little things that I have worked out are, accordingto the patent attorneys, not patentable on design butrather on utility on three counts. Furthermore, Ihave no shop. I am only one person investigatingideas and I wonder, seriously, what the regular man-ufacturerswith full staffs and full shop utilities anddevelopment facilities and finances to go into thesethingshave done. Consider one person sitting in adrafting room developing patentable ideasand I haveactually designed some of these ideas in one form oranother in certain libraries. They have met with suchpopularity that librarians even from other countrieshave come in and wanted to utilize some of these littletricks. It is not that they represent anything great orrevolutionary, as an over-all concept; my point i 3 thatI think the potential is tremendous. For example, Ithink one of the poorest solutions of the problem oflibrary equipment in the library field today is that ofthe lending desk. I think it is ridiculous. It is inflexi-ble; it is nothing but a bunch of boxes, and you canpick it apart. You pull out one section and it will do

something else. I don't think that is enough. Mypremise is that we should look into other fields,fields that we have a little something to do withoccasionallysuch as hospitalsand the tremendousstrides that have been made in these other fields.I go into a hospital today, and I am astounded at thespecial hospital equipment that has been developedby the hospital equipment people. I think a greatdeal has been done in st,z1 book stacks. I think agreat deal has been done in various sorts of filingsystems and that sort of thing, but I think that in agreat many areas of library furniture design, wehaven't even scratched the surface.

I recall the Princeton Committee back in 1945,which said that within five years we wouldn't evenrecognize the equipment that libraries would have;they called it "resources." Well, 1945 is a goodmany years ago, and virtually nothing has been donein certain areas of library equipment. I think it istime for a renaissance in thinking about libraryequipment, and I think it is time that the libraryequipment manufacturers begin to wake up and reallydo something in certain areas. That is my feeling.

MR. POOLE: Miss Voigt, would you like tocomment?

MISS VOIGT: Of course, library manufacturersare interested in function, and I think most specialistswould be very happy to sit down with you and observeyour particular way of doing things. Then, if it isfound that your way of doing a certain thing is thesame as that for many other libraries all over thecountry, then it would be something worth standard-izing. You would have to be more specific, of course,in your complaints. Just to say that something is notfunctional isn't quite enough. Just what are you tryingto accomplish? What does the furniture that you arenow using fail to do for you? Most equipment, I thinkis planned quite specifically for new buildings.

QUESTION: Before you close the discussion onthat subjectI was under the impression that the ques-tion was directed to you (Mr. Poole) and what LTPhas done recently. You have visited almost all of themanufacturers. In their showrooms and in a greatmany libraries, you have seen things like the micro-film reading desk, such as the Pope Pius Libraryhad, and I would like to hear your comments.

MR. POOLE: The question isknowing that theLibrary Technology Project has watched new libraryconstruction, that members of our staff have visitedthe plants of several of the manufacturers, and thatwe have seen new library equipment in many placeswhat do I think about the problem of functional designin furniture.

Yes, we have visited a number of manufacturingplants, we have seen a number of new libraries, andwe have seen some things here and there, whichseem to represent new and interesting developments.

However, the Library Technology Project itselfhas done nothing yet in the way of work simplification,although this is an area to which we hope to turn ourattention later. We have done nothing with the design


of workroom equipment. It seems to me that, in theirworkrooms, most libraries carry on sufficiently dif-ferent functions or carry on the same functions insufficiently different ways that is difficult to stand-ardize on equipment. This is something the librarianin his own situation must work out with his architector designer. I recall that one time, in a library withwhich I was associated, we sat down to work out aspecial desk for marking books, and we finally endedup with a piece of equipment which cost over a thou-sand dollars. This was a desk designed especiallyfor a right-handed marker. Not long after we hadto turn away a left-handed marker because the deskwasn't very functional in that respect. Of course, weknew this to begin with, but we were counting on thefact that most people are right-handed and for suchpeople this was a In:try functional desk. This workedout for us, but it might not have worked for verymany other libraries. My point is that in many casesyou must take into account the peculiarities of yoursituation. In others, some degree of functional stand-ardization may be entirely feasible.

As Miss Voigt said, I think most manufacturers,planners, and architects would be happy to sit downwith the librarian concerned and work out specialequipment which would be completely functional forthat particular situation.

The Pius XII Library was mentioned. I do re-member one table in that library as a particularlyfunctional piece of equipment. This was a tablewhich was designed for use with the library's Re-cordak MPC microfilm readers. The table had ahorseshoe-shaped opening in which the researchercould sit. It was conveniently located so that hecould handle the controls of the machine easily; italso had space in front of him for writing and spaceat the side for a typewriter. This was a very func-tional piece of equipment, designed especially forthat library, but it could be used with similar micro-film readers anywhere. This is the sort of thing thatthe librarian works out to meet h:s own needs, and Ithink it would have to be handled on an individualbasis in most cases. This is not, I believe, a massproduction item, but it could certainly be made foranyone who wanted it.

QUESTION: I would like to hear Miss Voigt con-tinue her discussion on library furniture finishes.

MISS VOIGT: I mentioned three finishes: lacquer,oil finishes, and conversion varnish. We used lacquersome years ago and we ran into problems. We foundthat if a pen pricked the top of a table, moisture couldget underneath and mar the finish. We also found thatthe color of finishes changed. They yellowed ratherquickly with lacquer. Oil finishes are very populartoday. They are beautiful, but I think you must decidefor yourself whether you can afford the maintenance.Mr. Stromberg mentioned earlier that one companysends out a notice with their shipments when thefurniture is made with oil finish. After the firstyear, the pieces had been re-oiled four times. Now,


if you are using this type of finish throughout a largebuilding, have you the staff to handle that muchmaintenance? After the first year, the f asniture re-quires maintenance at least twice a year; if you don'tmaintain it, the finish will deteriorate.

The conversion varnish finishthe one which weuse and which we are very proud ofis a baked-onfinish. We have found that it stands abrasion verywell. It is stain resistant and even a cigarette, whichhas been lying on the surface for a while, will not doit much harm. I think the thing to do, if you are un-decided, is to obtain samples of varnish finishes andreally put them through the test yourself.

MR. POOLE: Mr. Van Buren would like to adda comment.

MR. VAN BUREN: We ran some tests on linseedoil finishes with walnut surfaces. These are condition-ing finishes used in the Scandinavian countries; theyhave been for a hundred or two hundred years. Wedecided that we would pour on some materials suchas nail polish, paint, ink, coca cola, whiskey, and afew other things. We found that steel wool and linseedoil will take those stains out. One advantage of a lin-seed oil finish is that it is a penetrating finish and nota surface-coated finish. This means that if you dohave a burn or a stain, you can take it out without re-finishing the entire surface. In contrast, if you scratchor mar a straight lacquer finishwhich is a coatedfinishyou must refinish the whole thing; you can'tpatch it.

Now, the conversion varnisheswhich are verypopular, so far as I knoware probably the most dur-able of the applied finishes. I don't know how theycompare with Formica. Goodyear (or Goodrie,A; I'mnot sure which, at the moment) has developed a newfinish now being used by U.S. Plywood that has evengreater abrasive resistance than Formica and theplastic laminates. However, there is one difficulty:like the plastic laminates, it has to be applied at thefactory, and, in addition, it must be applied only toflat surfaces. You can't, for example, put this finishon the curved arm of a chair. What possibilities thatfinish may have remain to be seen.

In any event, we have had this experience withpenetrating oil finishes. There were some linseedoil finishes on walnut tables introduced into the Char-lotte library about six years ago. Unless I am mis-taken, those surfaces are treated once a year. I havehad some recent pieces, chairs in our own office,that have been in constant use since 1953 or 1954--which is eight years. In those eight years, we haveapplied linseed oil only once. The finish, I want youto know, is as beautiful as the day the chairs came in;they happen to be arm chairs. Ordinarily, the arm ofa chair wears at the point where the person's handrests on the front part. In the case of these chairs,the oil from the hand appears to enhance the finish.In short, our experience has been that we oiled thechairs only once in eight years; we have had no de-terioration at all.

2

Book Stack Selection for the Library

hiring the afternoon program on Friday, June 15,eyes Metcalf, library consultant, Cambridge, Massa-

:husetts, presented a paper on the selection of booktacks for the library. Mr. Metcalf was introducedy Frazer G. Poole who also sekved as moderator forquestion-and-answer discussion following Mr. Met-

:mil 's talk.KEYES METCALF: I am scheduled to talk for a

:ull hour on book stack selection for the library. Thatmay sound something like a doctoral dissertationwhere the author is trying to show that he knows more,nd more about less and less. But I can assure you;hat this is not a doctoral dissertation. There is noth-mg original in it. It will reach few definite conclu-sions. I am going to outline book stack problems and':, an tell you that it is up to you to make your own se-.ection after understanding what the problems are.shall interpret the subject broadly and talk about the

3quipment and also about its arrangement.I shall talk from the standpoint of a librarian, not

3f a stack salesman. I have nothing against the sales-men. I have good friends among them. But I havenothing to sell. I want to help librarians to obtainwhat they need. I am interested in costs and savingmoney for the purchase of books, iiistead of using itfor their housing, but I re:-..iize that there are timeswhen money spent for good housing that will attractreaders will be worth more in the long run than fundsspent in any other way. You must remember as I talkthat I have been in college and university rather thanin public library work.

Lshall use too many figures but can find no wayto avoid them.

The problem of shelving is an important one. Ihave worked in recent years on quite a number of li-braries that expect to have several million volumesin their collections. If we take twenty to thirty centsa volume as a rough figure for the cost of shelvingalone, you can see that we are dealing with big moneyjust for the equipment, without including the cost ofthe space the shelving occupies. The space itself,with its walls, floors, ceilings, lighting, and ventila-tion, costs several times as much as the shelving.If you are trying to save money, you should realizethat if you can save even 5 percent in square footage

used and equipment cost, without harming the results,it should be worth considerable time and thought.

There are a good many different problems. Thefirst one has to do with the material of which theequipment is made. Today it is likely to be wood orsteel. In the old days, many of our shelves werewood, attached to cast iron uprights. T)day we usevery little wood, except in reading areas and readingrooms where we have a feeling that wood is moredecorative, warmer, and pleasanter to the touch andsight. You might say that wood is more flexible be-cause it can be custom built to your own design moreeasily than steel. This being the case, wood can befitted under reading room windows, for instance. Ishould go on and say that shelving doesn't belongthere. Outside wall space is altogether too valuableto use for the accommodation of books, particularlyif the wall is largely made up of windows, so that thetotal book capacity obtained will be small. In fact,book shelving, in my opinion, does not belong on areading room wall in spite of the fact that books maybe decorative. They are bound to give the wholeroom a feeling of restlessness because of peoplegoing back and forth to get the books, and the imisethey make close to the persons trying to read.

Wooden shelves, particularly if they are walnutor oak, or painteda Williamsburg blue, for example,can be very handsomeare likely to cost at least 50percent more than steel shelving and perhaps twiceas much. This is not true, of course, in underdevel-oped countries where steel shelving must be importedand labor costs for the construction of wooden shelvesare low.

It should be noted that it is possible under somecircumstances to use cheap lumber and fabricate itvery inexpensively in this country. This was done inthe New England Deposit Library in 1941 and '42, justas the war started, and the Government three timestook over the steel shelving that was made for thatlibrary. In order to get any shelving at all we had togo to wood. We tooled up for this shelving with gangpunches that drove all the holes in an upright with oneblow and made adjustable shelves possible. Thisshelving cost only half what steel would have cost atthat time. It was dipped in a fireproof paint and is

Book Stack Selection for the Library 15

still standing quite satisfactorily, although I confesswe would have preferred steel if it could have beenobtained. Another problem with wood is that if theshelf length is too long, it warps, as the shelving inmy office in the Widener Library did many yearsago with unpleasant results.

But we are not likely today to build a concen-trated book stack of wood. It's pretty sure to be ofsteel, which in general is cheaper and stronger.Steel can be fabricated more easily on a productionline. However, wood can be used for finished endpanels, to give a warmer, pleasanter, more decora-tive effect in a stack reading area. To use them allthe way through a book stack is expensive, but notunusual. Some of us hope that, before to long, plas-tic or glass shelving, which will be strong enough andperhaps lighter than steel can be devised.

Let us now go on to a second problemthe typeof construction. To oversimplify, book stacks can bemulti-tier or free-standing, although it's not quite assimple as that. Most of uscertainly those of us thatare beyond middle ageare acquainted with multi-tier book stacks, which hold themselves up. Thefirst-level stack holds up the floors above, and some-times oren a reading room on the top floor of thebuilding, as is the case in the New York Public Li-brary.

A multi-tier stack provided as concentrated shelv-ing space as could be found until we began to use oneor another of the recently developed compact shelvingarrangements. The uprights at the end of each sectionwere the supporting columns for the whole structure.These uprights were at one time made of cast iron.Now they are steel. We shall deal with the length ofsections later on in detail but, in general, shelving isthree feet long, so the uprights come every three feetin one direction, and something like half as far again(or four and a half feet) in the other direction.

The stack companies making multi-tier stackssometimes make them with the ceiling support comingfrom uprights which are nine feet apart in each direc-tion, giving flexibility for the three sections and thetwo ranges between the uprights. A multi-tier stackhas a good many advantages. The uprights, beingplaced fairly close together, can be small and don'tget in the way as columns that support the wholebuilding do. Coming close together, the floors can bethin, often no more than two, three, or four inchesthick. But multi-tier stacks have disadvantages.When they are installed they are set. You can pullthe shelves out, but there are the uprights, three feetapart in one direction, and up to four and a half feetin the other. They cannot be shifted. I should go onto say that it is amazing what you can do in a multi-tier book stack by removing the shelving. During thewar the sub-sub-basement in the Littauer Center Li-brary at Harvard, which was part of a multi-tier bookstack, was used as a radar teaching laboratory, andthousands of men got their tr'ining in that field there.

Multi-tier stacks have other problems. If youwant wider shelves, the only way you can use them is

16 Book Stack selection for the Library

by narrowing the aisles between the ranges, although,theoretically, the deeper the shelf, the wider the aisleshould be. In earlier days, multi-tier book stackswere made with ventilation slots between each floorlevel. We didn't have forced ventilation or air condi-tioning, but we realized that books did not do well instagnant air. These slots presented a serious firehazard. The book stacks in the original Library ofCongress building, the New York Public Library, andthe Widener Library at Harvard all have hazardousconditions because of these slots. Another problemcomes from the fact that the lights are fixed. Thereis no harm in this if you can't move the book stacks,but it is just one more aspect of the inflexibility.

A combination of multi-tier and free-standingstacks can be arranged with the use of what is knownas the Robertson floor. This plan was adopted in theLamont Library where every other level has a floorstrong enough so that the shelving on it can supportthe floor above it. Then what amounts to a multi-tierstack on one level holds up a free-standing stack onthe one above, giving flexibility in at least half of theinstallations. Multi-tier stacks built today do nothave ventilation slots. Stairwells and elevator shaftsare closed in, and structurally, they present littlemore of a fire hazard than other parts of a librarybuilding. It is generally admitted that the cost of amulti-tier stack is less per volume housed than afree-standing stack, other things being equal.

The second type of stack installation is thatknown as free-standing. I must hedge on this pointimmediately, however, by saying that many stackswhich librarians think of as free-standing are not soregarded by the manufacturers. Manufacturers takethe attitude that a stack is not free-standing if it hasto be fastened to the floor, and they also believe thatif it is not to be fastened to the floor and is to be free-standing, it must have an extra-wide base in order togive it stability. Remember, therefore, when youtalk with stack manufacturers, that for them a free-standing stack has a broad base with narrower shelvesabove. They may also insist, with good reason, onspecial reinforcements (of which we shall speak later)to provide additional stability. They tend to recom-mend a free-standing stack of this kind as more flex-ible, more easily moved, and more satisfactory thana stack fastened to the floor. I am inclined to disagreewith them on this point. Almost any book stack,whether it is fastened to the floor or not, will damageany flooring beneath it, if it is cork, rubber, or vinyltile, vinyl asbestos, asphalt tile, or linoleum. If youmove the stack at a later time, you will find, generallyif not always, that the flooring will have to be replacedor at least patched. Some recently developed stacksare said to refute this statement. I hope the manufac-turer is right. If the flooring has been installedaround the stack and not under it, you are no betteroff when you move. The cost of fastening the stacksto the floor is very small, and fastening them pro-vides considerable, although not complete, stability.I am as yet unwilling to recommend any book stacks

(

'iff

that are not fastened to the floor, even with a broadbase. Without the fastening, they can tip over, and intoo many cases have done so, sometimes with onerange falling against another and the whole groupgoing down like a house of cards.

This brings us to the question of stack stability.There are several methods of making the stack morestable beyond fastening it to the floor. One is knownas sway bracing. I am sure you have all seen swaybracing with its heavy cross wires forming an X inbetween the two sides of a double-faced section ofshelving. The arrangement is not handsome, and abook pushed back on a shelf will run into the wire;thus use cannot be made of the space between theshelves on one side of the range and those on theother. Getting ahead of myself for a minute, remem-ber that most bracket shelves in double-faced cases,which make up most stack shelving, has two inchesbetween the back of the shelf on one side and that onthe other side, so that with a shelf seven inches deepon each side, it is possible to house a book nine inchesdeep placed anywhere (except where there is a simi-larly deep book on the other side) if there is no swaybracing in the way. The studies which have been madeindicate that only 6 percent of the volumes in a collegeor university library are as much as nine inches deep.Of course, sway braces are not used for every sec-tion, but the manufacturers tell us that there shouldbe at least one in every five, and preferably a largerpercentage than that, and how are you going to 1:73 surethat the unusually deep books you have will not beshelved in the sections where there is the sway brac-ing? Sway bracing, of course, costs something to in-stall, although it may be the cheapest of the methodsof providing extra stability. I might go on and saythat it has not been unknown for sway bracing to getout of order, although this is probably a fault of theperson installing it, rather than the one who fabri-cates it.

A second method of making shelving more stableis to give it a wider base. This base may be madewith a "button spreader." Some of the manufacturerslike to have the base twenty-four inches wide, even ifthe shelving above is only sixteen inches from oneside of the range to the other. Of course, this givesextra stability and is expensive. It can be providedwith a flat piece of steel at the bottom fastened to thefloor at the end of each section without the use of aclosed base.

A third method is the welding of the corners ofeach section. This is fairly expensive, but it providespractically the same strength as the sway bracing,and the extra cost is far less than the value of thespace saved by using a narrower base.

Another method used by at least one manufactureris "brace built" construction, in which, every so often,there is a channel along the base of two sections.This holds the uprights in such a way that they cannotswing back and forth in the line of the ranges.

The next method is that provided by a finishedbase; that is, an enclosed bottom shelf, the top of

which is three or four inches above the floor. This,of course, provides bracing for its full length andwidth. It also gives a more finished appearance. Be-cause it closes the base, dust and dirt cannot getunder it. Those of us who have worked with the bottomshelf three inches above the floor know how difficult itis to clean under the shelving, although it can be donewith a proper attachment on a vacuum cleaner. Aclosed base is, of course, expensive.

A finished or a canopy top provides extra stabilityat the top and, combined with a finished base, might besaid to make it practically impossible for anything tohappen to the stack, except, under great pressure, totip over sideways.

Still further strengthening is provided by finishedend panels. The end panels, like the finished basesand the canopy top, result in what seems to be a morefinished job. They are often considered essential,particularly in reading areas, although I have knownof more than one librarian who likes the look of thebook stacks without the finished end panels, becausemore of the books can be seen, and books are attrac-tive. The cost of end panels is considerable.

Other methods of strengthening include usingsteel channels at the top between the uprights and run-ning supports from the top of one range to the adjacentrange. The latter are called "strut channels." Theymay not look very well but, if the bracing from onerange to another is placed anywhere except immedi-ately adjacent to the cross aisles, very few if anypersons will notice it.

Many of us would say that it all comes down pri-marily t_ three points: safety, cost, and appearance.None of us wants the book stacks to tip over. I amunwilling to recommend any free-standing stacks thatare not fastened to the floor because I want them tobe absolutely safe. They must also be made stableenough so that they will not sway in any direction.A broad base will help, as will finished bases, fin-ished ends, canopy tops, and all of the special devicesthat I have just discussed. They will all cost money,adding up sometimes to more than 25 percent of thebasic installation.

I am not worried so much about the costs ofthese modifications if they are necessary and moreattractive. However, I particularly object to thecosts entailed in broadening the base and making thewhole case twenty-four inches from front to back in-stead of sixteen or eighteen if it isn't necessary or ifan equally good solution to the problem can be foundfor less money. The stack manufacturer may say thebroader bottom shelf does not interfere with thereader or the library staff member as he goes up anddown the stack aisles because it is at shoulder heightthat the width is necessary. I do not agree with this.I am no more interested in the width at shoulderheight than that where the wheels of the book truckcome. Any stack aisle that is thirty inches across iswide enough for a person to get through safely withoutbumping into the shelves at either side. W° are noneof us as broad as Carver Doone was supposed to be.


It's possible for most of us to squat down in a thirty-inch aisle. (More of this later.) The problem of thenarrow aisle is that of two people passing, and thisreally is not nearly as serious as some of us havebeen led to believe but, again, I'll speak more of thatlater. Narrowing the ranges six inches from twenty-four to eighteen inches may increase capacity 12 per-cent without narrowing the aisles. If you are readyto settle for ranges which are only sixteen inchesfrom front to back, the difference may be 17 percent.Of course, you must buy as many running feet ofshelving with the shallower range; but the narrowerones cost some 10 percent less per running foot.Also, remember that the cost of the space that isoccupied is the greatest expense, as I indicatedearlier.

Another argument for the wide bottom shelf,which provides the extra stability, is that the largerbooks can be concentrated there, but, because the 6or 3 percent respectively of all our books more thannine or ten inches deep are concentrated very largelyin a comparatively few subjects, it doesn't help much.They can properly be segregated. It is better on thewhole, less expensive, and as convenient to keepthem together in one part of the stack where theycan be readily found. In this connection, some of ushave been bothered by the size of the card catalogsin book form produced by the G. K. Hall Company ofBoston. They are certainly larger than any otherconsiderable collection of books that most of us areacquiring at all regularly. They are just over teninches deep, and if placed on an eight-inch shelf withtwo inches available at the rear before you come tothe next shelf, they will not protrude into an aisleenough to do any harm. They fit very nicely on ashelf nine inches deep in actual measurement. Andthere are very few reference books any deeper ex-cept large atlases.

So much for multi-tier and free-standing shelv-ing. Our next problem comes in the type of shelvesthat are attached to the uprights. There might besaid to be three or four main types: commercial,slotted or standard, bracket, and cantilevered. Wehave all seen commercial shelving in storage ware-houses and elsewhere, plain and unadorned, adjustableonly through the use of bolts and nuts, and then withsome difficulty. Partitions between sections are atleast an inch wide so that little shelf space is lost,but the chief difficulties are the appearance and thelack of adjustability. I-confess the best of them arenot bad looking. They cost, however, perhaps nomore than half as much as the other types of shelving,and certainly are not improper to use on occasion inwarehouse storage or in basement stacks closed tothe general public and where books are seldom moved.

Next we have the slotted or standard shelving.Here the shelf rests on four supports, two at the rear,two in the front or all along on slots at the ends of thesection. This makes them a little more difficult toadjust, but in some ways offers a slightly better ap-pearance. Many of us have been inclined to use the

18 Book Stack Selection for the Library

slotted-type shelving in our rare book rooms and inour reading rooms if we do not have wooden shelvesthere, but the percentage used in book stacks hasbeen comparatively small in recent years. Slottedshelving is generally somewhat more expensive. Itis probably more stable in one direction, if not both,and certainly does not require all the extra bracingof the kind that was discussed a few minutes ago.But because the weight is distributed and not concen-trated in the center close to the center upright, thestack may be just as easy, or easier, to tip into thestack aisle unless fastened to the floor.

The third type is bracket shelving. It was firstused early in the century. I remember the installa-tion of the Oberlin College Library in 1908, whichwas the first that I had seen. The shelf is hung onthe uprights. It is easy to adjust. It is possible, ifyou are strong and husky, to pick up a shelf loadedwith books and shift it to another section. Steel booktrucks have been made with end uprights so fixed thatyou can hang bracket shelves on them and move sixshelves at a time from one section of a stack to an-other without handling a single book by itself. I mustsay that this is not easy to do. There are two varie-ties of bracket shelves. In one, the ends are hingedand can be folded over. These have the advantage ofstacking when not in use, as the ends do not get inthe way. With the other, the ends do not fold over.There is really very little choice between the twobecause, while the cost of the hinged brackets is alittle higher, the installation charge is lower in ap-proximately the same amount.

One final type of shelving is an a--angement ofbracket shelves which is supported by cantileverwith a strong angle iron on the bottom of each end ofthe shelf. This is used primarily for newspaper andfolio volumes, which should be placed on their sides.The average newspaper today is perhaps twent,--three inches high (or long) and to place the boundvolume of the newspaper on its side, using a thirty-six inch section, is uneconomical. It is generallypossible, if the cantilever shelves are used, to makeroom for at least four rows of newspaper volumes inthree sections, thereby increasing capacity by a third.When these shelves were first installed, they some-times were not strong enough and warped, but withheavier gauge steel, that seems no longer to be thecase.

The problem as to whether to use bracket shelv-ing or the slotted type depends upon what you thinkabout the appearance and the costs. The latter isgenerally, but not always, somewhat more expensive.Bracket shelving is a bit more flexible, but there iscomparatively little difference.

The next problem arises in connection with theshelves themselves. They come in two typesflatand bar. Bar shelving was used extensively in thepast. It was supposed to be stronger, and the slotsbetween the bars were supposed to provide for theventilation that was desirable in humid climates.Today, bar shelves are not so well regarded because

III

they tend to damage the bottoms of the books. Ifyou examine a heavy volume that has rested on barshelves for years, you will often see indentations onthe bindings from the bars. With proper forced ven-tilation, the bars are not needed. Some people saythat they have the advantages of letting the dust fallthrough, which raises the question, fall through towhere? If you are going to have the dust settle, whynot let it settle on a flat shelf where it will be easierto remove. In this connection, I should go back to thecanopy top, which is supposed to keep the dust fromsettling on the top shelf. It is sometimes claimedthat the movement of the air at the top of the bookstack is such as to deposit an undue amount of duston the top shelf. I am not convinced we need toworry about that; certainly not if the air is filteredin connection with air conditioning.

But there are other problems about shelves. Thebar shelves are said to be stronger because of thebends in the steel, which give additional strength with-out additional weight, just as a corrugated concreteceiling does. The point is that we must be sure thatthe gauge of the steel in any shelf is heavy enough sothat the shelf will not warp. In general, there is verylittle trouble with steel shelves warping so long asthey are not more than thirty- six inches in length, andthis brings us to the question of proper length of shelv-ing.

In the United States, we have practically standard-ized on thirty-six-inch sections. That is the gross,not net length. The net is somewhere between 34 and354 inches, according to the type of shelving and theway the uprights are fabricated. In countries usingthe metric system, sections are often one meter long,or 39 37/100 inches. We all have seen shelving inthis country only thirty inches long, largely becauseit fits into the space available. I know of one librarythat has thirty different lengths of shelving in thesame building, which I can assure you creates consid-erable inconvenience at the time of shifting the collec-tions. The Widener Library at Harvard has 40-inchsections. In places where the stack ranges are ninesections long, they have the same total capacity aswould ten 36-inch sections.

As soon as you begin to vary the length of thesections in a modular-system building, you becomeinvolved in the bay sizes. Since our bays are ordi-narily figured on multiples of three feet, this can bea matter of considerable importance. However, wemust not dismiss longer shelves without further con-sideration. The Ames Company of San Francisco isprepared to provide 48-inch-long sections at a consid-erable reduction in cost from that for the standard36-inch sections. Six sections 48 inches long havethe same capacity as eight sections 36 inches long.The reduction of one-fourth in the number of theshelves and two-ninths of the uprights makes possible,the Ames Company says, a reduction of more than 15percent in the cost, even after using the heaviergauge of steel which may be required, because ofthe longer span, for very heavy volumes.

I will not venture to deny that there may be areduction in cost, but I do not know how great it willbe. I am not convinced as yet of the 15 percent sav-ings. I remember Angus MacDonald telling me thatthe net cost with the 40-inch shelves in Widenerinstalled in 1915 was no more than the standard36-inch shelves would have been, but he felt thatthat was the limit without going to a heavier gaugesteel, which would cost more than the savings fromthe reduction in the number of shelves and uprights.But I would be the first to admit that what was truein 1915 when the Widener stack was installed, or in1950 when I talked over the problem with Mr.MacDonald, might not be true today. I suggest thatthere are other matters to be considered in thisconnection beyond the cost of the installation andthe strength of the shelving, although neither ofthese should be ignored.

I have already noted that four-foot sections willaffect the bay size, that is, the column spacing. Itwill, of course, have to beif space is to be used toadvantagemultiples of four feet between columnsinstead of three. If the columns are square and twoof them take the place of one stack section, they canbe up to 22 inches in the range, allowing two inchesfor the upright next to the columns. This will givebay sizes of 18, 22, and 26 feet in length, includingthe column, or 16, 20, and 24 feet between them. Inthe other direction, with square bays, they can be4 feet 6 inches, 4 feet 5 inches, or 4 feet 4 inches oncenters, respectively. This is possible and works invery nicely without an unreasonable waste of spacefor extra wide aisles. If the columns are to containthe vertical ducts and take the place of a full sectionof books, they will not work out as well. The baysmust be 16, 20, and 24, or 28 feet apart, if square.If you are ready to have the ranges only four feetapart on centers, this is fine, but otherwise the six-teen feet will not work at all and the twenty-footspacing will require ranges five feet on centers,which is very extravagant in a large book stack; thetwenty-four-foot range will provide 4 feet 9 3/5inches on centers, and the twenty-eight-foot range,4 feet 8 inches on centers, both of which are unneces-sarily wide. Of course, the bays do not have to besquare so long as you do not want to turn the rangesin a different direction at a later time, and the archi-tect and contractor are not worried about the effectof the irregularity on construction costs. There ismuch to be said for bays that are not square, but thatis another story.

To go back to the 48-inch shelf, this is not im-possible from the point of view of bay sizes, althoughit can be seen that it involves new problems. Thelong shelves may save money, although that cannotbe definitely proved until practical tests have beenmade with competition between different companies.For a small library, any length of shelf that is notstandard may be undesirable, because, for the manu-facturer, it may mean special tooling up if theshelves are not in stock at the time they are ordered;


and they may represent an even greater problem at alater time if a few extra shelves are needed.

However, there is still another problem on whichmore information is needed before I would be readyto recommend the longer shelving, even if it can beproved that there is a cost advantage. This problemis the inconvenience, if any, to the user. Is the humanbody so put together that we can use a four-foot-longshelf to advantage?

Most of us have found that with catalog drawers,we prefer to go from top to bottom and then on to thenext row to the right. This is so we don't get in theway of other users any more than necessary, ratherthan because of any physical inconveniences. I mightadd that, in some countries, catalogs are used theother way, going from left to right on the top row andthen down to the next one and so on. With a heavilyused catalog, one user may, with this system, blockfrom use by others as many as one hundred drawersat one time.

Going on now to the printed page, we have foundthat lines which are too long make reading difficult,and moving from one line to the next may lead to con-fusion and delay. But neither of these problems iscompletely comparable with that resulting from along book shelf, although there is some relationshipbetween them.

It is true that if shelves were twelve feet long,users might interfere with one another in a busy partof the stack, or when one shifted to the next shelf, hemight be confused. But the basic problem is a differ-ent one. With a shelf at eye height or one immediatelyabove or below, one can move along readily at leastfor the length of a four-foot shelf. However, as onegets down lower in the section, it is quite a differentsituation. Even a young and agile person may findthat, for the bottom shelf and probably the two shelvesabove the bottom, hitching along with partially bentknees, as will be required for a long shelf, will bedifficult. I know that when one gets in his seventiesand has bifocal glasses and a football knee, this is nota happy situation. But I realize that I should not beconsidered a typical reader, and a 15 percent reduc-tion in cost might make inconvenience to a few seema very minor matter.

I have been trying to figure out a satisfactorymethod of weighing the advantages and disadvantagesof a four-foot shelf. The cost factor might be settledby a team representing perhaps three different stackmanufacturers. I suggest, however, that anyone work-ing on this aspect of the problem should keep in mindthat the cost of the book stacks probably representsnot more than 20 percent (and probably considerablyless) of the total cost involved. If the stacks cost $50for a double-faced section and you can house on theaverage one double-faced section in 16 2/3 squarefeet of floor space, and the construction cost for thatspaceincluding floors, lighting, and feesis $21 asquare foot, the space costs $350 and the shelving$50, or a total of $400. A reduction in the cost of theshelving of 20 percent would be $10, or a savings of


24 percent of the total, or the same saving that couldbe obtained by reducing the distance between rangecenters by 1 2/3 inches, or by lengthening a fewranges by one section.

This brings me to the depth of shelving, thewidth of stack aisles, and the length of ranges. Wewill find that these three problems are fully as im-portant as the length of shelves, if not more so.

Seven-inch-deep shelves are common and can befound in many libraries for large parts of the bookstacks. I shall, in speaking of shelves, use theiractual depth. The stack companies use the term"nominal," which is one inch deeper. Seven- or nine-inch shelves might be called standard for all parts ofa library, except for the bottom shelves in some"free-standing" stacks, the shelving of atlases, news-papers, books in the fine arts, and for referenceshelves where an eleven-inch depth may be founduseful. Remember that bracket shelves have a two-inch space vacant in the center of a range so that aseven-inch shell, without sway bracing, can shelve anine-inch-deep book anywhere, unless the volume be-hind it is more than seven inches deep. This willtake care of about 93 percent of all books. An eight-inch (actual)-deep shelf will take care of a ten-inch-deep book anywhere except when there is an unusuallydeep book behind it, and will be adequate for 97 per-cent of all volumes. However, most stack manufac-turers hold that an eight-inch "actual"nine-inchnominalis an in-between size, not generally carried.I suggest that a shelf of this deptheight-inch actualis perhaps the best of all for most shelves in someuniversities.

One of the advantages of bracket shelving is thatyou can use different-depth shelves on the same up-right, something that is difficult to do with slottedstacks without special arrangements. But, as indi-cated earlier, unless the shelves are strengthened insome other way, sway braces are needed, and swaybraces prevent the use of the two inches just men-tioned. Sway bracing may be slightly cheaper thanany other types of reinforcement, but the inches theyuse are so valuable that I doubt if any of us shouldafford this type of bracing. As was noted earlier, thesquare footage occupied by book stacks is worth per-haps six to seven times what the stacks themselvescost. The space used by sway braces is, in my opinion,an inexcusable luxury as well as a nuisance.

To summarize a bit, I suggest that stacks alwaysbe fastened to the floor for safety's sake; that they bestrengthened, if necessary, in other ways than bysway bracing; that they be equipped with shelves thesame width all the way up, instead of with widerbases. As to the width, I suggest that the shelves beonly seven or eight inches deep, actual measurement,unless the bay size gives you no advantage this way.Seven-inch shelves save 4 percent of floor spaceworth 25 to 30 percent of the cost of the shelving, and10 percent or more in the equipment cost. Eight-inchshelves will require fewer deeper shelves for over-sized books.

Another complication must not be forgottenthatis, finished bases. Should they be sixteen inches,eighteen inches, or deeper, and should you have themat all? They present a more finished-looking job.There is no place under them for dust and dirt collec-tion, and they are a stabilizing factor. The cost ofshelving goes up nearly 10 percent with every twoinches added to its depth. It is true that the cost ofthe space is much more important than the addedcost of the shelving but, here, narrower shelves savespace as well as money. Each library must decidefor itself what it wants to do about the depth of shelv-ing, but the facts that I have just mentioned should bekept in mind.

Before deciding on shelf depths, aisle widthsshould be considered. Again, there are various fac-tors, the chief one being the bay size available; thenthe anticipated amount of use. Open- or closed-access shelves make a difference. The length of theranges and the cost of space are also important.Aisles 36 inches wide are sometimes called standardfor an open-access stack, but every inch this can bereduced saves something like 2 percent of construc-tion cost, not book-stack cost. To visualize this, letus say that a 1,500,000-volume stack takesto use acommonly accepted formula of fifteen volumes asquare foot-100,000 square feet of floor space. Ifyou reduce the aisles two inches, it saves 4 percent,or 4,000 square feet of floor space. If you reduceboth aisle width and range thickness by two inches,the reduction will be 8 percent, or 8,000 square feet,which, at $21 each, would save $168,000. I am notsaying that this is a desirable saving, and there aremany cases where it would not be worthwhile, butyou must evaluate your local situation and then decide.

To return to the aisle width: You should have suf-ficient room (1) for the bottom shelves to be ade-quately lighted (more of that later); (2) so you cansquat down to read the bottom shelf and select andremove the desired volumes; (3) so that a book truckcan get through and you can take a book from a truckand reshelve it; and (4) so you can pass another per-son without too much difficulty. The book-truck prob-lem can be partially solved by specially designedtrucks, but their capacity is adversely affected; thesquatting down depends a great deal on the size andagility of the person concerned. How much must orshould) you cater to the elderly, stiff, rotund facultymembers with bifocal glasses and poor eyesight?Again, you must decide. How heavily is the aisleused and how long is it? The larger the book collec-tionother things being equalthe less any one aisleis used. The length of the aisle affects the amount ofuse and also affects very considerably, as we shallsee later, the total stack capacity. It is suggestedthat aisles in a reference room or in an undergrad-uate open-access stack with 100,000 volumes shouldnot be less than 36 inches wide, or ranges more thaneighteen feet, preferably 15 feet long. This wouldalso be true in a public library open-stack collection

of limited size. However, in a large collection withlimited use, a 33- or 34-inch width for an aisle isentirely adequate; a 32-inch width is not impossible,and, in a very large library with fairly limited access,30 inches is a quite satisfactory width. This meansthat, with ranges 16 or 18 inches deep, 48 inches oncenters will do for a large, little-used collection, and51 or 52 inches on centers will be entirely adequate.I will not attempt to speak here of the effect of thison column spacing, but it is a matter of considerableimportance. I might say that I have worked on a verylarge library this past year where a four-foot-rangespacing has been adopted in place of a four-and-a-half-foot one, and where a net saving of a milliondollars will result.

Now a few words about range lengths. I have al-ready spoken of the desirability of short ranges inparts of a library with very heavy use and I believethis to be important. But a very large, comparativelylittle-used collection is a different proposition.Ranges 30 feet in length have in the past generallybeen considered the outside limit for any library, butthe new National Library of Medicine has ranges upto 36 feet long without, so far as I know, feeling thatit presents a problem. The storage levels of theLamont Library have ranges as much as 51 feet longand, for the use to which they have been put, this hasbeen quite satisfactory. If there were two 3-foot-wide cross aisles or one 6 feet wide put in the 51-footranges, resulting in three 15-foot ones, instead of one51-foot range, the capacity would have been reducedfrom seventeen sections to fifteen. Seventeen is 2/15,or over 13 percent, greater than fifteen. I know of anational library in another country which has rangesup to 60 feet in length and is not unhappy about it. Ifyou gain 13 percent of capacity by narrowing rangesand stack aisles and add 13 percent to the 13 so ob-tained by lengthening ranges, it gives a total increaseof 28 percent. I might go on and talk about the differ-ence between six-foot-wide cross aisles and four-and-a-half-foot onesthis makes a difference of 7i per-cent with 21-foot-long ranges, and a three-foot,instead of a six-foot, aisle would mean 15 percentbut we are talking about book stacks, not aisles,and I must go on to other problems.

We must still deal with the height of the casesand then face the problem of finishes and attachments.Multi-tier stacks came with different height floorlevels, although they were often 7 feet 6 inches oncenters, i.e., 7 feet 6 inches from the first floor tothe level of the second floor. If three inches werelost in the floor thickness, plus the ventilation slots,each level was 7 feet 3 inches in the clear. But oftenthey were only seven feet. I know one multi-tierstack with only 6 feet 9 inches in the clear. Toooften, lights are so arranged that the top few inchesare difficult to use. In recent years, a full 7 feet6 inches has become more or less standard. Thisis fine, but some librarians and architects do notknow why. I like to explain it in this way: The top


shelf should not be so high that those using the stackcannot reach it. Most people, even if no more thanfive feet in height, can reach up to get a book from ashelf 6 feet 4 inches above the floor. If the top shelfis any higher than that, it is unreachable to so manypeople as to make it inadvisable. Studies made byVan Hoesen at Brown University and Fremont Riderand others showed that some 90 percent of all booksare less than eleven inches high. A steel shelf is notmore than three-quarters of an inch thick and, ifshelves are placed twelve inches on centers, a bookjust under 114 inches can slide in. With sevenshelves 12 inches on centers, with the top one at6 feet 4 inches above the floor, the top of the bottomshelf will be four inches above the floor, making pos-sible a three- or four-inch base for protection of thebooks there. If the distance between shelves is cutone inch, eight shelves will still not be possible, sothere is little to gain from it. Adding a few inchesmore to the height so as to make the eighth shelfpossible would place it beyond reach. With sevenshelves 11 inches apart on centers, the total heightcan be reduced to just under seven feet, which is toolow for comfort. Also, there will then be some 11percent of books that cannot go on these shelves, inaddition to the 10 percent which are more than eleveninches high, or 21 percent in allenough to makeshelves so placed entirely undesirable. All thingsconsidered, the 7 feet 6 inches in the clear seemsmost satisfactory. The Widener Library with 7-foot2-inch stack heights can install only six shelves. Ifit could use seven, the library's capacity would beone-sixth greater, and 350,000 more volumes couldbe stored in it, something which, I can assure you,would be much appreciated. But if a book stackshould be at least 7 feet 6 inches high, is an upperlimit beyond that of any use? It depends on what youdo with the extra space. The higher you go, thegreater the square footage cost. You might buildhigh enough for an eighth shelf, and then use thateighth shelf as storage for less-used books. It wouldbe comparatively cheap space, but it would also beconfusing. I do not recommend it in most circum-stances.

A book stack area under 7 feet 6 inches in theclear is high enough for individual accommodationsfor readers in carrels anywhere in the stack, and, infact, 7 feet 6 inches is high enough for small groupsof readers if care is taken to place them where theycan look out in some direction for a considerable dis-tance. In the Lamont Library, there is a mezzanine91 by 45 feet. It provides seats for seventy-five read-ers who apparently work in comfort with a 7-foot 9-inch ceiling. Some of them are 75 feet from any out-side light. At Princeton, 8-foot 4-inch ceilings on thestack levels permit adequate heights for roomslargely given over to human occupancy that are asmuch as 25 by 36 feet or even 25 by 54 feet in size.

There is no upper limit in stack height except thecost factor and the fact that the higher the lights arehung, the less efficient they are on the lower shelves.


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This brings up a new method of stack lighting that hasbeen used in a number of libraries in recent years.In order to gain flexibility and to make it possible toshift ranges closer together or farther apart withoutchanging the lighting fixtures, rows of fluorescentlights are placed at right angles to the ranges insteadof over the center of the aisles. Adequate light isstill available and the rows of lights can be set up tosix feet apart instead of 4 feet 6 inches or less whichthe standard arrangements require, thus saving in-stallation, upkeep costs, and charges for current. Iwill not attempt to go further into the lighting prob-lem, except to make two points:

If the lights are at right angles to the ranges andthe stacks 7 feet 6 inches high, the ceiling should beat least eight feet and preferably a little more to pre-vent the lights from overheating the books on the topshelf.

The narrower the aisles, the more difficult it isto light the bottom shelves properly. There may begood light on the floor, but the backs of the books areat right angles and get little light, perhaps as little asone and a half or two foot-candles. This may seemterrible, but actually it is better stack lighting thanany of us had a generation ago, and few persons usebottom shelves for long consecutive periods. In anattempt to improve lighting on bottom shelves, thoseshelves are sometimes tipped forward so as to obtaina better angle for the light to strike the back of thebooks, but such shelves are costly in space as wellas in construction; they have the added disadvantageof tending to let the book slide or be shoved to theback of the shelf where it loses the advantage of thebetter angle and looks bad. The use of fluorescentlighting in book stacks gives more adequate bottom-shelf lighting than was possible with incandescentbulbs, even with special fixtures, partly, at least,because the light source is lengthened and the read-er's head does not get into his own light. One otherproblem with fluorescent lights: They are most suit-able when they are not turned off and on frequently,as that shortens their lives. The question then arises:can you afford to leave them on all day? This is justone more problem that must be faced.

When all these questions about the stack struc-ture have been decided, what about its color and fin-ish? Shelves used to be almost exclusively black orkhaki. With standard shelving, some installationshad the divisions between sections and the end panelspainted white so they would show the dirt and couldbe washed, I suppose. It was finally realized that thecost of other colors would not be great and that theuse of color would make shelving less monotonousand more attractive. A dozen colors are now avail-able. A different one can be used on each level ifdesired. Some people like intense colors. Othersprefer quieter tones. Of equal, or greater importance,at least from the functional point of view, is the finish.The paint or enamel must be hard enough so it willnot chip easily. If it does, the underlying steel willrust with distressing results. Manufacturers may

differ in the number of coats of paint they think arerequired, the amount of sanding between coats, andthe temperature of the baking. Some prefer sprayingor dipping to brush painting. These are very techni-cal questions, which I am dodging, except to speak oftheir importance and to say that, too often, stack in-stallations have not been satisfactory because of poorpaint jobs.

Almost all book stacks require one or more ac-cessories: range label holders, shelf label holders,and book supports. No one of these should be neg-lected. All cost money but will cost more later ifthey are ordered separately or in small quantities.

Range label holders can be flat against rangeends or stand out, often in wedge shape, so as to bein view as one walks down the cross aisles. If theystand out, have them high enough so that a tall manwill not bump his head on them or put out an eye.With either variety, be sure they are large enough tocontain the required information without having theprint or type so small as to be difficult to read. Thisis particularly important with long ranges.

The problem with shelf label holders is to makethem readily movable but still not easily moved whenyou want them stationary.

There is not time to go into details on book sup-ports. Be sure that they will stay put where you wantthem to, and still be easily shifted; that they are somade that they will support books of various heightsand also that they do not present thin edges which,with a careless shelver, will knife a book beingshelved. A few libraries have preferred to use bricksor concrete blocks, covered with heavy brown paper,or better still, with buckram for book supports. TheHoughton Library at Harvard has used glass bricksin some places. They are quite decorative. Somebook supports are suspended from the shelf above,but generally they are placed on the shelf with thebooks to be supported.

We should say a few words about vertical com-munications in a book stackstairs, book lifts, eleva-tors, pneumatic tubes, and endless belt conveyors.Stairs take space and sometimes cause the user toget lost if they go around several corners and landone with a different orientation on different levels.Make stairs as simple as possible; not too wide ortoo narrow, not too steep or too easy. Install themin such a way that they do not add to the fire hazardby making a chimney. A book will be published soonby the Library Technology Project of the AmericanLibrary Association which discusses fire hazards ina library. The book should be useful in this connec-tion. I will limit myself here to suggesting that youavoid sprinklers in a book stack. Water may be evenmore dangerous than fire.

Book lifts must sometimes be installed becauseof lack of funds for elevators, but remember that, un-less you have an attendant at both ends, a book liftmay be a snare and a delusion. What it will amountto is that the librarian will not be saved stairs andthe books will be subjected to unnecessary handling

at each end of the line. While it is true that readersare sometimes hard on books, too often it is unneces-sary and careless handling by the library staff thatdoes more harm than readers.

An elevator, even if it is just large enough for afairly thin attendant and a book truck, can be installedand its use restricted to the staff by having it oper-ated only by key. It will save weary hours of laborand wear and tear on books. It will also take care ofphysically handicapped persons, or, for example, asenior faculty member with heart difficulties.

Pneumatic tubes to carry call slips from desk tostack stations have been used for many years. Theytend to be noisy and if call slips are in the form ofpunched cards which must be kept flat, they involvecomplications. In this connection, at least one largeuniversity library has had serious difficulties lately.It is possible to use a telautograph or teletype, or apublic address system in place of pneumatic tubes.Pneumatic tubes have been used for the transfer ofbooks over long distances, but they go so fast andstop so suddenly that they may present a serioushazard to the books.

Endless belt conveyors have been in use in li-braries at least since early in the century. They alsomay be noisy. Too often they get out of order, gener-ally because we have made them too complicated,tried to make them turn too many corners, run ondifferent planes, and receive and drop books at manystations. The most satisfactory installations havebeen the simplest. Of course, they are now used ona large scale in industry, and the manufacturersknow much more about these problems than they didin earlier years.

A few libraries have installed escalators in placeof lifts or ramps. They can be very satisfactory, butthey tend to be noisy, expensive in space, expensiveto operate, and can be a great nuisance when they getout of order. Whether or not they are desirable maydepend on the number of elevators they can replace.

A few words about stack carrels. Carrels in-stalled at right angles to a stack-room wall can bethe most economical seating arrangement to be foundanywhere, particularly if they are placed at the endof a blind aisle, but also to a lesser degree, if nextto an aisle which is required anyhow. If the continuityof the wall is not affected by columns or heating pipes,carrels can be spaced as desired, even as close asfour feet on centers if the table is held down to 22inches, does not have a shelf, and the chairs do nothave arms. Spacing of 4 feet 6 inches on centers isalmost luxurious for undergraduate use; five to sixfeet is very satisfactory for a graduate student writinga thesis, if the table is at least 42 inches wide. Inmany institutions, carrels can well be open withoutdoors, but all this is a little out of my field today.

There is time only for brief comments aboutcompact storage. An article in the March, 1962,issue of College and Research Libraries considersthis problem. The subject might be summed up bysaving that, unless the construction cost of space is


high, it may often be cheaper and more convenient touse narrower aisles, shallower ranges, and commer-cial shelving rather than the expensive sometimesequally inconvenient drawer and hinged-type shelvingor even the Ccnipactus ranges which can be shiftedby hand or by motor. A decision on any of thesemethods should be reached only after careful calcu-lation of cost. On the other hand, if the use of "com-pact shelving" can make new building constructionunnecessary for a considerable period, it can be awonderful solution to the space problem.

I have omitted discussion of stack capacity persection or square foot. It will be covered in detailin the book on which I am presently working.

I hope nothing that I have said in so much empha-sis on savings in cost and space that unduly crowdedand inconvenient stack installations will result. Anadequate, convenient, functional installation shouldalways be uppermost in our minds. Costs are impor-tant, indeed, very important, but they are stillsecondary.

QUESTION: Can you make additional commentson the $21 per square-foot figure for building costsas related to stack costs and also for additional com-ments on the arrangement of lighting at right anglesto the stacks as related to the height of the ceiling?

MR. METCALF: In regard to the cost, the fig-ure of $21 that I used will, of course, vary in differentparts of the country. You can do it in this section ofthe country, for, perhaps, $15; you can do it in someplaces in Massachusetts for $28a great deal of dif-ference from one place to another. I used $21 simplyas a rough figure. But the basic cost of the stackspace is very much the same as any other space with-out equipment. In the modular building, you have somuch floor space. The modular building has floorcovering; it has a ceiling with lightsnot very muchdifferent from one to the other, if you have a flexiblebuilding such as we're trying to build today. In re-gard to the height, 7 feet 6 inches is all you need forbook stacks. I agree that we would be unwise to builda building with nothing but 7-foot 6-inch ceilings. Ifyou have the additional height of 8 feet 4 inches, youcan run your lights perpendicular to the stack aislesand also have a lighting arrangement that would giveyou some added flexibility. I shouldn't get into thequestion of ceiling heights this afternoon, although itis something I am very much interested in and wouldbe glad to talk with you about later. There have beena good many studies; the 8-foot 4-inch ceiling heightyou are speaking of was decided on for Princetonafter a mock-up was built. A group of people repre-senting everybody concerned in the library observedthe mock-up: the ceiling was cranked up and downand when it got down to 8 feet 4 inches, people hol-lered and that's why it was decided on. Up in Boston,I can show you a ceiling that is 9 feet 6 inches in aroom 131 feet long. The room is perfectly comforta-ble because various things were done to make itcomfortable.

On the other hand, I don't believe that any


of us would want to build a building the size of thisand of this quality, with ceilings at the entrance levelof no more than 9 feet 6 inches in the clear. You wantto get something else, and there are several ways ofdoing this. You can keep the ceiling down in someparts of the building and have it higher in other parts.In the Lamont Library, which I think gives the im-pression of being spacious, you come into a floor witha ceiling, part of which is 13 feet high and part 15 feethigh, and you have the impression of a building veryspacious and extravagant. The average height of allthe rooms in Lamontthat is, all of the space inLamontis 8 feet 6 inches. It is difficult for peopleto believe that this is the case. You can do all kindsof things with height. I had a room made at Harvardwith a ceiling 6 feet 8 inches, in which people livedfor twenty years just to prove that it could be done,but I don't recommend it.

QUESTION: Should the architect or the librarianbe concerned with the design load of flooring?

MR. METCALF: The strength of the floor iswhat the floor would carry. Certainly the librariancould not be expected to be an authority on the sub-ject. He should have this much to say about it: "Iwant to be able to put book stacks anywhere in thisbuilding that I want to put them and put them at rea-sonable distances apart." Then it is up to the archi-tect and the engineer to provide answers as to howbig the base size can be without carrying that load,without it being unduly expensive, how thick thebeams have to be, and so forth. The librarian shouldnever be asked to decide on those technical questions;he should be expected only to give the requirementsthat he wants for the building. And if he gives unrea-sonable requirements, the architect ought to be ableto respond with, "Yes, we can do this, but it's goingto cost you an extra $100,000." That kind of thing.Is that satisfactory?

QUESTION: With the lighting at right angles tothe stack aisles, what would be the illumination levelat the mid-point with ranges of from 15 feet to 18feet long?

MR. METCALF: There are too many variablesthere to tell you the whole story. With the lights atright angles, you're going to get, on the average, asmuch light as when they are parallel. As we allknow, fluorescent lights shine out at the sides ratherthan the ends. One is interested in the light all theway from the top shelf down. Having good lightingon just the top shelf or the middle shelf doesn't doyou any good if you can't see the bottom shelf at all.Those are just some of the problems. The type offloor covering you have, the type of ceiling you have,thy; amount of reflection that you getall of these,of course, make a difference. I might have addedone other thing about the bottom shelf. If the bottomshelf is wider than the shelves above, the light doesn'thave as good a chance to reach it because it is nar-rower down there; the effect is as if the shelf werethe same width as the shelves above. The lightingon the bottom shelf depends, to a great extent, upon

the width of the aisle. This is a very complicatedmatter.

QUESTION: Is it necessary to install lightingparallel to the ranges?

MR. METCALF: I don't think it makes verymuch difference, and libraries that have installedlights at right angles, instead of parallel, have been,so far as I know, just as satisfied as the others. Thequestion of lighting is very, very complicated and somuch of it is a question of relative situations. Forexample, if you come in to a book stack and go I Lame-diately to a bottom shelf, which is poorly lighted, youprobably will be able to find what you want, and thenyou stand up where you have ten times as much light,and it will look very bright.

QUESTION: In planning a new library building,how should one consider the problem of whether toinstall lighting parallel to the ranges?

MR. METCALF: Yes, I see your point now.There it just depends on whether you think you willever want to move the ranges closer together orfarther apart, because the old, regular way of puttingthe light parallel to the ranges will lead you into apredicament if you ever shift the ranges farther apartor closer together. In one way, this simply gives youadditional flexibility. On the other hand, if you wantto turn the stacks at right angles, you're in troubleagain. It is a compromise, like all these things thatI have been talking about. I have said some thingsthis afternoon, and said them rather strongly, whileI could argue on the other side just as well. But Ihave been calling attention to things that I want librar-ians, architects, and stack manufacturers to thinkabout more than they have in the past. Moreover,each library must decide for itself as to what it thinksits going to need fifteen years from now. One of ourdifficulties is that none of us knows what the use ofour library is going to be in the future. We're gettingas much flexibility as we can. We're building as flex-ibly as we can and we think we can do better than wehave in the past. I am sure there will be changesahead, changes that will make a good many of us nowworking on buildings feel pretty silly if we live fifteenyears more.

QUESTION: If a seven-inch shell will take careof 90 percent of books in a library and an eight-inchshelf will take care of 97 percent of the books in thelibrary, is it worth the extra expense of eight-inchshelving to take care of the extra 7 percent of books?

MR. METCALF: This just brings up the pointthat I have made before. Each library must decidefor itself. If I said that the seven-inch shellandwhat I meant to say is a seven-inch shelf with twoinches behind, making nine incheswill take care of93 percent, according to the best figures that I'vebeen able to find. The eight-inch shelf, which makespossible the shelving of ten-inch books, will take careof 97 percent. These are figures that Fremont-Riderworked out in connection with those that were done byVan Hoesen at Brown some twenty years ago. I havenot studied them myself, except that I am convinced

that they are as good as any figures you can get.However, I must say that they won't be the same forthe University of Florida as they would be for NewYork Public Library or Cornell University.

QUESTION: I am concerned about the problemof sway braces which, by blocking the passage ofbooks across the center line, tend to interfere withshelving of the small percentage of the books largerthan those for which standard eight-inch shelves aresuitable.

MR. METCALF: The problem is this, as I seeit: suppose 5 percent or 10 percent of the books fallinto this in-between group. What are you going to dowith all the ones that cause trouble as they are nowshelved, because of sway braces? Suppose you takeone third of those books which are too deep, and youreclassify them, and then suppose that next week ornext month or next year you have to re-shelve thecollection? This means another few percent you haveto shift, and then another. It is a good deal easier todo it all at once and know what your situation is, inmy opinion. This is a large enough figure, particularlyif you have the seven-inch shelving (which is less ex-pensive, as Miss Voigt indicated), which would allowfor the nine-inch book without the sway braces. Thedifference between a seven-inch book and a nine-inchbook is considerable and there are a whole lot ofbooks in that group. But it is a complicatdd matterand the library must decide what it is going to do.I just want to point out what the problem is and thenhave you decide. My own opinion is that if you canavoid sway braces by arranging the stacks in someother way, then, in most libraries, you will savemoney in the long run.

QUESTION: Has there been research on materi-als used in book stacks other than steel, wood, andaluminum?

MR. METCALF: Perhaps this is a problem torefer to the Library Technology Project. I have beeninterested, personally, in finding some other kind ofstack for a good many years. I have approachedstack manufacturers and architects and asked, "Hasn'tthe time come when we can build stacks out of plasticor fiberglass of some kind that would be lighter andwould stand up?" So far, the only answer that I havebeen able to receive has been, "Yes, we could build it,but we are afraid you would walk in some morning andfind it all on the floor." Again, this is not a librarian'sjob; he can only ask the question. I think it is up to thearchitects and the manufacturers to look into it; butwe ought to stimulate them and I am glad you askedthe question.

MR. POOLE: We cannot add anything to this ex-cept to confirm Mr. Metcalf's experience. We toohave talked to manufacturers about this point and havereceived the same answer. The problem with shelvingseems to be the same as with plastic or fiberglasscatalog card drawers. We know that some experimen-tation is going on; some of you may have seen moldedplastic drawers in home furniture. Plastic is morefrequently used for drawers in institutional furniture


f"

such as dressers and tables. In that type of furniture,drawers are not required to be so rugged; they arelarger and do not have to be fabricated to such closetolerances. Both plastics and fiberglass are beingused for this purpose but the information we have re-ceived from manufacturers is that it is not yet timeto use these new materials in card catalog cabinetsor in shelving. The state of the art is such that itjust isn't possible yet.

MR. METCALF: One other point that I wouldlike to make, since I have the opportunity now, issomewhat connected with the matter we have beenspeaking of. It doesn't have to do with stack equip-ment, but does have to do with other equipment. AtWidener Library at Harvard, the consultation tablesadjacent to the card catalog are covered with battle-ship linoleum. This was installed in 1915 and, overthe past forty-seven years, it has received punish-ment that very little linoleum has been given. Thesurfaces have been neglected, have had nothing doneto them to date, and they are just as good as theywere forty-seven years ago. But you can't get that


product anymore. You ask an architect, or a builder,and they say it simply is not produced anymore.There is insufficient sales volume to make it worth-while. This is the kind of situation in which I hopelibrarians will make their needs knownand push.Perhaps, if we push the equipment people and thearchitects enough, they will be able to get a betterquality of material. The Widener Library has sec-tions with cork floors that are forty-seven years old,that have been neglected, that have never been oiled,waxed, or buffed. The flooring is just as good todayas it was forty-seven years ago. It doesn't look verywell, but there it is. Can you find cork today thatwill stand up like that? You can get the best qualityof cork you can find today and have a girl with spikeheels sit at a desk and the floor will be gone in a fewweeks.

Cork floor is a very good floor, but we can't getquality in some things as we used to. I hope we willuse our influence to encourage the manufacturers totry to get us materials of better quality in many li-brary applications.

. 3

PANEL DISCUSSIGisT:

Specification Writing and Bidding Proceduresfor Furniture and Shelving

Friday evening, June 15, a panel discussion meet-; was held on the subject of writing specificationsid bidding procedures for library furniture andelving. The panel was made up of three members:)yt Galvin, librarian of the Charlotte, North Caro-na, pOlic library, who presented the viewpoint of

librarian; and, representing tha manufacturers'ewpoint, Homer Lombard of the Art Metal Con-:ruction Company and Hal Syren of the Library Bu-mu, Remington Rand. The meeting was moderatedj William S. Geller, assistant librarian of the Losngeles County Public Library, who made a few in-^oductory remarks and also presided over the dis-assion period following the three presentations.

MR. GELLER: Now that all of you have acquirediat hard-to-come-by money for the beautiful equip-ent you want so much, we come to the harsh realitybuying it. Perhaps all of you have come to this

':age by this time, and there are, I am sure, many of)11 who have reached this point several times.

Obtaining the best equipment for the money avail -)le puts the most experienced librarian to test. Thisrdeal entails the writing of specifications which can

defined as a complete physical description of what311 want and then asking for bids from manufacturers

the field. How do we do this? No guaranteed re-ults can be foreseen but, collectively, we have with3 a great r)ool of experience in sales and purchase

shelving and Equipment and a practicing library ad-ministrator who can give us som..a, advice on obtaininge equipment we need. The manufacturers' repre-

,entatives have a wealth of experience, and I am surehat we can all gain some help from it.

HOMER LOMBARD: The opportunity to present, manufacturer's viewpoint on specification writingnd bidding procedures for library shelving is verynuch appreciated.

It is important that the specification document'overing steel library book stacks and related equip-nent be a detailed, precise, and explicit descriptionIf the equipment to be furnished and the services to)e performed.

Tie fundamental components of a good set of specfications include a description of the equipment, illus:rated by the drawings and characteristics of the equip-ment.

Preliminary to preparing steel book stack speci-fications, the specification writer should review thedrawings and confer with the architect, librarian, andconsultantrequesting their advice as to details, fea-tures, and conveniences to be specified and to deter-mine the type of book stack that will best serve therequirements.

The initial specifications should be reviewed withthe architect, librarian, and consultant and revised,if necessary, to make certain the final draft is a com-plete description of the equipment to be furnished.

The specification document should stress the im-portance of and necessity for providing a satisfactoryand durable finish for steel book stacks, a finish whichhas been time-tested and proved to meet the require-ments.

The two recognized styles of book stack rangesgenerally specified are standard-type and bracket-type book stacks. Both kinds serve their purpose andare furnished for single-tier installations.

Single-tier book stacks are generally "free-standing" ranges but, occasionally, because of law orcustom, top-braced ranges are specified.

Multi-tier book stack installations include: bookstack ranges, deck floors, stairs, railings, enclosures,booklift, occasionally a book conveyor, and, frequently,study carrels. Multi-tier book stack construction pro-vides maximum book capacity per cubic foot of build-ing area.

Standard-type book stack ranges, because of thedesign, are often specified for stack areas which areequipped with study tables, carrels, and chairs i:orthe use of students and readers and which are locatedin convenient proximity to the books. Standard-typeranges are also generally preferred for law, business,research, and rare book libraries as well as for read-ing rooms.

Bracket-type book stack ranges are frequentlyfurnished for public, college, and university stack-rooms and are specified }because of their simple de-sign and because of several convenient features whichcan be readily incorporated to serve a variety of re-quirements.

Book stack accessories should be specified toconform to the requirements of the library and gen-erally include: range finders, range end label holders,

Specification Writing and Bidding Procedures 27

L.

shelf label holders, book supports, and, occasionally,sliding reference shelves and movable work tops.

Specifications for finishing the book stacks shoulddefine the materials and methods for cleaning and pre-paring the parts to receive the prime coat, applicationand baking of the prime coat, inspection process, andthe application and baking of the final coat with aneggshell gloss finish giving a reading of 40 to 65 de-grees on a standard gloss meter. The finish shouldbe capable of withstanding the most severe tests ofbending and hammering without flaking, cracking, orloss of adhesion. The final finish should be of 1.40mils thickness (as a minimum) and capable of re-sisting acetic acid, liousehold ammonia, 10 percentlye, alcohol, cigarette burn, salt spray, abrasion,printing, and all normal usage resistance require-ments of a good finish.

Specifications frequently include the followingfeatures:1. Free-standing book stack ranges braced longitu-

dinally without the use of diagonal sway bracesor exposed gusset plates.

2. Provisions for inserting a future expansion shelfat top of each bracket-type shelf section.

3. Adjustable bracket shelves furnished with foldingbrackets

4. Top shelves arranged to accept shelf label holdersand wire book supports.

5. Periodical ranges for display of current issuesand storage of past unbound issues furnished withself-stowing periodical display shelves.

6. Stue Iv arrels furnished with provisions to re-ceiv,, Aring and future reading lamps.The Notice to Bidders should include the follow-

ing statements:"Drawings. and specifications will be issued to

steel book stack manufacturers who are qualifiedthrough their experience to manufacture, deliver, andinstall the steel book stack equipment required by thedrawings and specifications.

"Each prospective bidder shall submit data todemonstrate, to the satisfaction of the architect, hisfacilities and ability to perform work of the charac-ter and scope specified.

"As part of the pre-qualification requirements,each prospective bidder shall submit a list of ten ormore book stack equipment installations of equal orgreater magnitude which he has executed within fiveyears of the date of the current specifications, givingnames of owner, architect, date of installation, and con-tract price for each installation. Prospective biddersshall submit the required data and obtain approval oftheir application ten days prior to date of receiving bids.

"Bidders should examine all drawings relating tothe steel book stacks, and become fully informed asto the extent and character of the work required andits relation to other work in the building.

"Each bidder, prior to date set for receivingproposals for steel book stacks, is to deliver andinstall steel book stack samples complying with thespecifications.

28 Specification Writing and Bidding Procedures

"Book stack samples are to be full-size, double-faced and two shelf sections long with end panel onone end of sample. Accessories as specified are tobe submitted. Each bidder is to have equal time todemonstrate his product.

"Proposals for steel book stack equipment willbe considered in conjunction with samples submittedby bidders. The committee reserves the right to re-ject proposals submitted in conjunction with samplesnot complying with the specifications.

"If additional data is required prior to awardingcontract, the committee reserves the right to testbidder's samples based on the use the book stacksare to serve. The results established by the testswill be considered by the committee in awarding thecontract for steel book stack equipment."

HAL SYREN: An interesting article written byMiles 0. Price of Columbia University was publishedin the April 1, 1958, issue of Library Journal. Mr.Price discusses the letting of contracts based on com-petitive bids and his article contains much importantinformation for architects and librarians.

I quote: "The term, 'Lowest responsible bidder'has occasioned some difficulty, but as defined by thecourts, it seems to mean substantially the following:`Lowest' is plain, provided the specifications are ob-served and the bid is thus properly made. 'Respon-sible' means, first, a bidder financially able to do thejob, to see the work through to a satisfactory comple-tion. But it means more than that. Mere specifica-tions are unsatisfactory standards by which to judge acompleted job. Work may adhere so closely to themas to render rejection of the completed work impos-sible, but still produce a shoddy result. The courts,universally consistent with the requirement of goodfaith on the part of the awarding officers, demandsomething more. This is both the ability and the willon the part of the contractor to fulfill his contract,not only to the letter but according to its spirit aswell. The awarding officers in their limited but sounddiscretion may, therefore, require demonstrated skill,ability, integrity, good morals, experience, and ade-quate facilities. Judicial interpretation of the term`Lowest responsible bidder,' is the same in federalgovernment situations as in state and municipal, asstated in O'Brien vs. Carney: The selection of thelowest responsible bidder by the contracting officeris an exercise of discretion, and, therefore, not sub-ject to review by a court. 'Responsible' means some-thing more than financial ability, capacity, and integ-rity. A lowest unsuccessful bidder can neither compelthe contracting officer by writ of mandamus to enterinto an agreement with him, nor enjoin the perform-ance of the contract made with the bidder's successfulcompetitor, nor recover damages for the government'srefusal to enter into a contract."

A survey of awards made during the past yearcovering library equipment brought out some very in-teresting information. This survey covered sometwenty-five awards and totaled about one and one halfmillion dollars. In some instances, public funds were

Ei

involved. The award was made after careful exami-nation of samples and visiting installations listed bythe bidders and was given to the lowest responsiblebidder.

I can give you a few examples. The figures I willuse are approximate and the bid award may not havebeen to the lowest bidder. I cannot reveal the namesof the institutions involved because the informationwas given to me in confidence. We will give the low-est bid and the amount of the award only as there mayhave been several other bids.1. A public library; lowest bid approximately

$16,000; award made at $20,000.2. A college library; two awards made; lowest bid

approximately $58,000; award made at $72,000.3. A high school library; lowest bid approximately

$12,000; award made at $16,000.4. A public library; award made at approximately

$19,000; low bid not revealed.5. One of the largest library equipment orders

placed during the past year; award made at ap-proximately 10 percent over lowest bid.

6. A public library; lowest bid approximately$165,000; award made at $200,000. This coveredseveral projects.

7. A college library; lowest bid approximately$150,000; award made at $178,000.

8. A college library; lowest bid approximately$85,000; award made at $100,000.

9. A public library; lowest bid approximately$87,000; award made at $125,000.

10. A college library; lowest bid approximately$72,000; award made at $100,000.Many contracts were placed with the lowest bid-

der, but we found, in one instance, in which the awardwas made to the lowest bidder, that the equipmentproved to be unsatisfactory and, on a later bid, thissame low bidder was disqualified and hiz bid was notconsidered.

Occasionally we find an architect or librarianwho will attempt to prepare specifications coveringlibrary equipment, perhaps thinking that they do notwish to be under obligation to manufacturers or theirrepresentatives, or perhaps that they may want to befair to all manufacturers. From their friends, theysecure copies of specifications used for other build-ings, or copies of standard specifications and catalogsfrom manufacturers. The architect and librarianstudy these documents with great care and find some-thing in one and something else in another. They thenset about to write their own specifications. To themanufacturer, this is most unfair, as he must then beexpected to fabricate equipment to meet these speci-fications. To the owner, the cost can be increased asmuch as 50 percent. The practice could also resultin everyone bidding on an alternate, causing confusion.The suggestion here is that trained consultants on li-brary equipment are available; they have the knowl-edge to study your problems; and they will preparespecifications which will help you in getting goodbids.

Specifications should be written in a definite, pre-cise style and should be a complete statement of whatis wanted for a specific project. Because of the tech-nical nature of library equipment, the specificationsshould be fully descriptive of all items. TI ,e listingof a manufacturer's catalog numbers or 'approvedequal" only is not sufficient. Experience in designing,manufacturing, and installation is essential to the suc-cessful execution of a contract, and subsequently, theproper maintenance of a library.

Therefore, these specifications must include thequalifications and conditions that an acceptable biddermust meet.

1. A bidder must be able to manufacture in hisown plant, or in a plant of a single company which herepresents, at least 80 percent of the equipment heproposes to furnish. I recall that at a meeting inwhich samples of library equipment were to be dis-cussed, a local department store had submitted the lowbid. Because of the store's high standing in the com-munity (and because it was a local taxpayer) its bidwas accepted without a statement showing who wouldmanufacture the equipment as specified. Nor weresamples available. Their representative, upon beingquestioned, stated that equipment would come fromreputable furniture builders, whose lines he had soldfor years. The librarian, who was present, wantedadditional information; he questioned the representa-tive further and brought out the fact the wood shelvingwould be made in a nearby millwork plant, the tabletops in a factory different from the one making thelegs, and so forth. The librarian learned that eightfactories would have been engaged in completing thecontract. (Incidentally, imagine the finishing prob-lems alone.) He rightly concluded that the libraryshould not be used as an experimental work shop.

2. Special items: A full description of each itemshould be prepared and each bidder must bid accord-ingly. Any attempt to substitute a product of commer-cial manufacture, or one which deviates in any way,should automatically disqualify the bidder.

I recall one library in which the details and spec-ifications for a circulation desk had been worked outto the satisfaction of everyone. There were units forhousing book trucks, units for special charging cards,a pneumatic tube station, etc. The award of this con-tract was made to the low bidder after he had beenquestioned about his understanding of the details ofrequirement. His shop drawings were approved but,as sometimes happens, some details were not clearlyshown. When the desk was installed, it was discoveredthat, although trays for the cards were the correctsize, the manufacturer had neglected to allow sp;.,zefor the guides in height: follower blocks were omitted:slots in the charging desk top were reversed: thebook truck unit would not take a truck with rubberbumpers, and so on.

3. Standard items: If these vary from items spec-ified, the bidder should, at least two days prior to theopening of bids, furnish a letter outlining the impor-tant points of variance from specifications and should


i

include complete drawings and specifications. Thereare many unsatisfactory installations in this country,installations in which the purchasing authority lookedmore at the dollar savings than at enforcing the spec-ifications. After an installation is made and in use,enforcing the specifications retroactively is almostimpossible, unless the problem has been foreseen andproperly handled in the specifications.

4. List of installations: Each bid should call fora list of ten installations made in last five years.

5. Samples should be called for and submittedprior to the opening of bids and should not be changedor withdrawn after they have been deposited. Samplesshould be tested by an independent laboratory. Thesesamples should be deposited before bids are openedand if samples are not delivered, the bid should bedisqualified.

Samples of equipment, in our opinion, can be ofthe greatest help in making awards on library equip-ment contracts. This is one way to determine whothe lowest responsible bidder shall be. Frequently, itis found that the lowest bid is not the best bid.

6. Guarantee of equipment for at least one year:It is necessary that your specifications requirementsbe made as precise as possible so that your librarywill be furnished with equipment that you want. Speci-fications may vary, depending upon your equipmentconsultant (and I do urge you to have one), and heshould be a specialist in this field. He should be paidfor this service. Expert knowledge is required: it isa time-consuming task to study your requirementsand to prepare specifications correctly.

We have noticed that some specifications, pre-pared recently, include a bidders' list from whombids will be accepted. Before bids are requested, thebuyer decides who shall bid on his equipment. Thisis a good development and we think it should be usedmore frequently.

HOYT GALVIN: Specifications for library furni-ture and equipment are written instructions describ-ing, distinguishing, and limiting the exact furnitureand equipment, including workmanship and installation,desired for a particular library.

These specifications should be written by the li-brarian, the architect, or the specialist responsiblefor furnishing and equipping the library.

The writing of specifications, however, is the laststep in the selection of the furniture and equipment.The specification writing should follow layouts of fur-niture prepared as the building plans are developed.Early preparation of layouts permits adjusting thebuilding plans, where advisable, to fit the furnitureand equipment needs.

Writing the specifications should also follow theselection or design of each piece of furniture andequipment needed and the selection of all woods andfabrics. Also, the specifications should follow prep-aration and approval of the budget for furniture andequipment. This budget should be developed andtested against tentative price data as the furniture isselected.


A11101,1701.62.4A1010.,

'._.

Thus, being the last step following layouts, selec-tion, design, color selection, and budget analysis, thespecifications are written to delineate the furnitureand equipment requirements as a result of the previ-ous steps.

The specifications should be written in simpleand clear language, be as brief as possible, and befair to the contractor or contractors who will bid tosupply the furniture and equipment according to thespecifications. At least two copies of the specifica-tions should be supplied to each prospective bidderone copy for return with bid notations, and one copyfor the bidder's files.

Furniture and equipment specifications differsomewhat from those for construction. The latterspecifications complement working drawings for abuilding. In most cases, furniture and equipment spec-ifications will describe the required products andworkmanship verbally when the products sought arecommonly available and when a particular brand and/or manufacturer's model number can be indicated.Where special designs have been created for the par-ticular job, detailed drawings of the relevant itemsshould be included with the specifications.

The specifications should be divided logically in-to sections. Normally, the first section will be aninvitation to bidders giving the date, hour, and placefor the final receipt and opening of bids. In this in-vitation section, any pertinent bid bond requirementsshould be specified.

The second section will usually state the generalconditions relating to delivery, uncrating, installation,and disposal of crating. In this section, the eligibilityof bidders should be outlined, and the requirementsregarding alternate bids. If samples are to be required,this should be specified in the general conditions. Al-though it is advisable to have the library's attorneycheck specifications, it is especially important for theattorney to check the general conditions to make surethat the library is adequately protected, and that thespecifications fulfill all legal requirements applyingin the particular community.

A third section, which might be called "generalspecifications," covers such items as the constructionrequired for all table tops and the architectural speci-fications for steel book stack installations. Steel bookstack manufacturers provide architectural specifica-tions for stacks. A particular manufacturer's speci-fications can be used, or better still, selection can bemade of those features of steel stack specificationswhich are of special interest for the particular instal-lation.

The main section of the document will be theschedule of equipmOnit which describes each item, ar-ranged so the bidder can give both unit prices and thecomposite prices where several pieces of one itemare indicated. ,,-,;-

The general purpose of the specifications will beto ensure the procurement of functional, durable, andbeautiful furniture. To this end, specific manufac-turer's model numbers will usually be shown, followed

by the term "or equal." The "or equal" term is nec-essary to allow other manufacturers to bid, and where"alternates," e.g., substitutions of certain items, be-come a factor in the bidding.

Due consideration should be given to proposed al-ternates to make certain that they meet the specifica-tions for function, durability, and beauty. Appraisingan alternate for function is probably the easiest ofthese judgments to make. Evaluating durability ismore difficult unless a sample is dismantled. Evenmore difficult is the question of beauty. Beauty is amatter of tastedifficult to define, but necessary toachieve the over-all objective. Consequently, thegeneral conditions should be clear with respect to de-sign; a phrase such as the following should be in-cluded:

"In considering items offered as alternates, qual-ities of design and appearance will bear equal weightwith those of function, durability, and workmanship."

Such a phrase will help to protect the libraryagainst the prospect of accepting an unattractive andhence inappropriate piece of furniturehowever func-tionally satisfactory and durable, as an alternatethatis, something not in keeping with the desired designand appearance nor with the architectural design ofthe building.

Where furniture items are to be covered withfabric, the manufacturer and fabric number of thefabric to be used should be a part of the description.The form might be something like the following:

"Four-seater sofa, 94 inches long, oiled walnutbase, foam rubber cushions and back. To be up-holstered in naughahyde #1918 JE, beige De LuxeCordero, Monarch #C-1610, or equivalent."

Personally, I recommend that the bidders be re-quired to give a specific unit price for each item.The general conditions should state that quantitiesare approximate. Then, if all of the bids should ex-ceed the budget, the quantities can be reduced accord-ingly, so that the total cost comes within the budgetfigure. Some bidders resist item-for-item biddingand attempt to provide only a total price, which leavesthe library in the position of being forced to choosebetween buying all or nothing from a given bidder.The bidder's argument is that by bidding the job as awhol,e, he can offer a discount on the assumption thathe will get the entire job. In my opinion, the biddercan do both. He can give unit prices for each itemspecified, and he can give a total price with a discountif he is the successful bidder for the entire job.

Having been given unit prices, the library has theoption of dividing the orders with each item going toits respective low bidder. Many bidders will not bidthe entire layout but some of the specialty bidderswill give excellent prices for specifications. To giveproper consideration to such limited bidding, onemust have unit price bids on all items.

Without item-for-item bids, the library is in apoor negotiating position if the bids are too high; withunit prices, in some instances, the bids will be lower

than anticipated and quantities of individual items canbe raised to more closely fulfill the library's needsall of which can be calculated more accurately to fitthe limitations of the budget.

MR. GELLER: I think it should be mentioned atthis point that the American Library Association doesnot sponsor any particular product. These men werechosen because of their experience. I think, though,before opening this to questions, I would like to askMr. Syren to comment on specifications for woodshelving.

MR. SYREN: First, in my opinionand I am notspeaking for anyone elsewood shelving should besectional. In other words, if you want to take a sec-tion or two sections down, you can do so, and, so faras space is concerned you won't be penalized. If youwant to change the location of various sections, youcan take them down and move them to different places.This should apply both to wall shelving and to double-faced shelving in reading roomsespecially, I think,where wall shelving is used. We don't recommend itgenerally, because the cost of wood shelving at thewall is a little higher than double-faced.

Basically, we believe that a wood upright shouldbe all wood and have no metal of any kind inserted forthe holding of book shelves. On occasion, I have seenwhen this type work has not been done by such goodmanufacturers as Sjostromthat the metal parts hadnot been recessed far enough; they acted as obstruc-tions to the books when they were placed against theupright. I have seen rusting of the metal strips.Therefore, we believe that a wood upright should bebored for holes and pins used for adjustment.

All uprights should have an adjustment of oneinch. Less than that, I think, is unnecessary, becausewe find (and, although Mr. Metcalf will probably sayit is high time we thought of making some changes,we have made wood shelving for seventy-five years)that a one-inch adjustment has served very wellthrough these years, and I haven't seen any reasonfor changing it.

The intermediate upright, we feel, should be madeof solid wood. We agree with Sjostrom. However, theway to achieve beauty in end panelsand, when youhave double-faced shelving in a reading room, the endpanel is the first thing you see as you walk throughthe dooris through veneer, not rotary cut sliced ve-neer. Sliced veneer costs more than the rotary cutveneer and, we believe, has greater beauty, but thereis no difference so far as utility is concerned.

The top and base should be bolted in place. Thequestion of whether to have a flat or sloping bottomshelf, I think, is a matter of choice. We find that inreference desks, where you have 42 inches or even60 inches, you do lose a little space with a slopingshelf. If you use a sloping shelf, there should besome type of abrasiveeither cork or rubberon theshelf to keep the books from slipping backward.

Normally, when shelving is to be used againstthe walls, it should be supplied with backs. Thesebacks can be installed in a color which will blend in


IA

with your eq .tipment; they will serve as an attractivearea again . the wall and act as a good backgroundfor the books. In double-faced shelving, you shouldhave some sway braces, unless you install a back.There is no way that we can construct wood shelvingwith such bracing as that used in steel book stacks,in which we can eliminate the sway braces. Theshelves should be made of solid stock. The stripsshould be narrow and glued together with electronicglue so that you do not have any warping, chipping, orcracking where the boards are put together. Thefront of the shelf should be rounded slightly, both atthe top and the bottom, so that as books strike theedge of the shelf they are not likely to splinter theshelf itself over a period of time.

Finally, we believe it is advisable for the shelfto have a slight groove underneath for a label holder.I believe that is about all I can say about woodshelving.

MR. GELLER: Thank you, Mr. Syren. Maybe Ishould give your competitors equal time. They willprobably ask for it. Mr. Lombard, do you have a re-buttal to make to that pitch?

MR. LOMBARD: Well, I never have favored woodshelving in a library.

MR. GELLER: Would you like to comment?MR. LOMBARD: I can understand Mr. Syren's

suggestion for introducing a colored back into thewood book stack. It is also an improvement.

If I were making the selectionand I am quitecertain I would specify on thisI would specify metal;and with the variety of colors available, it seems tome that metal is more appropriate than wood. Thatis my opinion. That thought has been carried out inquite a number of libraries; the people concernedwere satisfied and continue to be satisfied. So, forreading rooms, reference rooms, rare book rooms,and that sort of thing, I recommend that steel bookstacks be considered.

MR. GELLER: I should remind the audienceagain that the American Library Association is notsponsoring any particular product.

QUESTION (directed to all members of the panel):I wonder how closely the bidder should be held to spe-cific delivery dates and should money penalties be im-posed for non-delivery or inappropriate installationsby a specific date?

MR. SYREN: I believe that to be a good question.We have been late in delivery lots of times. We havebeen penalized, too, but there are two sides to thequestion. If you purchasers want us to deliver thematerial, we will try to do it; however, if we deliverin advance, would yuu pay us a premium? So, itshould be a two-way street.

I think that if your project is such that it is ofgreat importance to have a building ready, for, say, aspecial meeting, you are justified in imposing a pen-alty. On the other hand, we find that, time after time,we have exerted great pressure to have equipment de-livered by a certain date and then the equipment issimply stored for several months awaiting completion


of the building. We are not paid for such extra effort.In many cases, payment for the equipment is delayedbecause it has not been installed.

MR. LOMBARD: Regarding a penalty for non-delivery, I would suggest first that orders be placedearly enough so that the delivery can be made in areasonable time. Nobody likes to pay a penalty andthe manufacturers, in their pricing, do not assumethat there will be a penalty. When the profit is takenawayor part of itthe situation is not conducive tothe best public relations. The manufacturer nameshis price, and he gives you a shipping datesometimesa delivery dateand he plans his production accord-ingly. He is interested in trading those steel bookstacks, for example, for dollars. I know that ArtMetal likes to trade steel book stacks for dollars; weare interested in turnover of equipment, so we don'tlook with favor on these penalty clauses. I don't be-lieve there is much to be gained.

MR. GELLER: Mr. Galvin, would you like totake your turn?

MR. GALVIN: I can't help recalling an experi-ence I have just had that is related to what Mr. Syrenhas said. We had a delivery schedule on equipmentfor a new branch library, a small building (4,000square feet), just within this last month. Everythingwent wrong so far as the construction was concerned.It was a combination of things that really weren't any-one's fault in particular. The power company and thetelephone company didn't make their installations un-til a month after the contract date and so forth. How-ever, we had furniture stored there because the con-tractors delivered it when we asked them to. In sucha situation, I would have been embarrassed to haveinflicted a penalty clause. If you are dealing with re-sponsible bidders, such clauses are probably not nec-essary. There are bound to be exceptions when com-pletion of the installations is really critical. Of course,and this applies to all of us, we want our library to befinished; we have been waiting for a long time. Thosedays go by or that week, or month, or two monthsina large building, sometimes six monthsand it seemsas if we won't live to see the completion of it. But oncethe building is completed and you have moved in andyou are worried about the shakedown cruise, those daysof delay begin to fade from your memory. In mostcases, I don't think penalty clauses are necessary.

There is one more thing I wanted to say. I thinkyou ought to have your furniture ordered six monthsbefore you want it delivered. Now, that is playingfair with your manufacturer. Don't wait until the lastminute. Plan your furniture for your building as theplans for the building are being made. When the ar-chitect is completing the working drawings on certainbuildings, buildings that will be completed in a six-month period, it is best to have the specifications onfurnishings completed at the same time. With a largebuilding, this is another matter. If a year and a halfor five years are required for construction, largeorders for equipment should be submitted perhapseight or nine months prior to the completion date.

QUESTION: In regard to wood shelving or doublefaced shelving, what should the backs be made of? Ismasonite as good as plywood or is it not as good asplywood?

MR. SYREN: I think you have two things to con-sider. If you wish to paint the backs, masonite servesevery purpose that wood can, because you are coveringup the surface. Masonite does not shrink. It does notabsorb moisture to any extent. There are times whenyou would prefer the beauty of natural wood for thatback, and, in that case, I think the wood back servesthe purpose much better. But, so far as holding theunit and dividing it from one side to the other, eitherwill serve the purpose: you can take your choice.

QUESTION (directed to Mr. Syren): The publicinstitution which writes rigid specifications is fre-quently accused of having written closed specifica-tions. Now, to get around this accusation, the publicinstitution sometimes invites bidders to offer substi-tutes. Then, if we accept a substitute, we are criti-cized for lack of faith in our specifications. As apublic institution, we don't like criticism; we likegood public relations. Have you any suggestions?

MR. SYREN: As I tried to point out, we recog-nize that when public money is involved, you have aspecial situation. When you decide that a particularbid is not the one you want and that someone else's isa more responsible bid, you must be prepared to sup-port your position with facts.

There are several relevant factors but, you shoulddo as we suggested; that is, call for samples. It is notenough to say, "We will accept substitute bids." Injustice to the bidder, and to the municipality concerned,you should be more specific. There are enough good,responsible bidding manufacturers in steel and woodfrom whom you can get a description better than thatexpressed simply by "just a substitute."

Then, if you require the submission of samplessuch as coulki be tested for you by a laboratory, yourposition would be secure. Am I answering thequestion?

THE SPEAKER FROM THE FLOOR: Not quite.Obviously, if you permit substitutions, you are goingto ask for samples. It is going to have to be demon-strated that what is offered is fully acceptable, butthat doesn't relieve you of criticism. After all, youhave written rather rigid specifications. There issome expense entailed in meeting those specificationsand, then, you must attempt to be completely open sothat everybody has an opportunity to bid. The situa-tion becomes particularly violent at the local levelwhen you have a number of bidders trying to get thebusiness. They say, "Well, look. You wrote rigidspecifications and now you give the order to some-body who didn't follow them." And yet, that biddermay have a superior product as demonstrated by yoursample.

The point I am making is simply that, in this kindof a situation, you are in for a good deal of criticism,and on the local level this becomes pretty tough.

MR. SYREN: I can appreciate what you are up

against, but I still believe that if you had those samplesinspected by some laboratory, and you had the labora-tory report available, and you permitted the competi-tor who was not given the award to see exactly whatwas being supplied, you might soften that criticism alittle bit. I still hold that you should write good, stiffspecifications and stick to them, because there areenough good manufacturers to obtain satisfactory bids.

Normally, I think three bids are required and willserve the purpose, every purpose. But there may belocal conditions in which this may not apply. I knowthat we can't say that this rule is universally appli-cable; we are just trying to help wherever we can.

QUESTION: Mr. Galvin, please. In outfitting thewhole library, should all of the equipment be bid andlet in one contract, or several? If more than one,what would be the ideal breakdown of contracts?

MR. GALVIN: It certainly simplifies life for thelibrarian if the lowest responsible bidder can supplyall of the equipment. There is no doubt about it. Onthe other hand, as I said earlier, I don't think that youshould eliminate what I called "specialty manufactur-ers," manufacturers who might produce only a few ofthe items on your entire equipment list. Perhapsnothing is involved except sand urns, ash trays, andplanters. But those manufacturers should have achance to bid anyway. And then, if one of them is thelow bidder and if you decide that they meet the speci-fications, you must start letting more contracts. It isa somewhat greater nuisance to the library. But ourjob is to get the best we can for our institution for themoney, and if it means several contracts and worryingabout deliveries from several manufacturers or job-bers, why, that is what we are paid to do. Our archi-tects or our consultants may be paid to handle thisproblem and, of course, the simplest course is to haveonly one supplier, if he can supply all of the equip-ment. I don't think that it necessarily will work outto the best dollar advantage.

MR. GELLER: We have a rebuttal coming fromMr. Syren.

MR. SYREN: This is not as much a rebuttal asit is a suggestion. When the list of equipment is beingprepared, I think that for any library there are cate-gories of equipment that should be grouped together.The technical equipmentsuch as charging desks,catalog cases, reference tables, and perhaps the tablesand the chairsshould fall under one classification.Normally, the library equipment people do not buildupholstered equipment, such as davenports, club chairs,and so forth. Sometimes it is advantageous for a locallibrary to have that type of equipment listed in a sep-arate category. This would provide an opportunity forthe library equipment manufacturer to bid on it if hewished to. If it is established in the beginning, thatis, that urns or clocks or various other things that wedon't make are listed separately, I don't think that youwould be penalized.

I would like to add something else: Occasionally,the librarian will get a budget of $50,000.00 for equip-ment for the library. In the meantime, prices have


gone up or gone down, and he doesn't want to makechanges. Rather than total itemizing of an entire bid,I would suggest that you include reference to the pos-sible deduction of amounts for certain items whichmight be eliminated in order to provide for someflexibility.

QUESTION (to Mr. Galvin): Recently I attendeda meeting of the procurement officers for the federalgovernment, and one of the main subjects of discus-sion was the "or equal" clause. In your talk, you men-tioned that you felt that a product "or equal" was agood way to specify. The general consensus of thisgroup, and I agree with their opinion very strongly,was that this is a rather vague way of describing aproduct. I think most of the manufacturersat leastI can speak for the one that I representfeel that adefinitive specification places less personal judgmentin the hands of the buying officer than would be de-sirable. If, for example, you say this should be red"or equal," and somebody offers you blue, and youhappen to like blue, it is fine; but, if you don't likeblue, it is not equal. If you had a real yardstick for aproduct against which you can measure it, I think youhave a little better way of evaluating it. As it is, youmention "artistic evaluation." This, of course, issomething extremely difficult to be precise about but,wherever we can use a definitive yardstick, wouldn'twe be a lot better off to try to do just that?

MR. GALVIN: Well, I am practically in the po-sition of receiving that as information rather thantrying to answer it as a question, because I like theidea. Your local lawsand they will perhaps varysomewhat from area to area and state to statemayhave some bearing on the question. I am certainlynot an expert on the laws of the United States and thebidding in the various states of the union. So, I thinkit is a matter that you should take up with your localattorney. I would say this: if you can specify oneitemand that is the item you want and you can getthree bidders for ityou are in an excellent position.

QUESTION: My question involves this: The li-brary at present has, let's say, 40,000 volumes on itsshelves. Let's say it is in a store location, and it isgoing to move into a final building that will hold100,000 volumes. Would you plan the layout as itshould be when it will have 100,000 volumes and giveout bids on that basis, or would you give out bids fora little over 40,000 and keep adding as you go along?

MR. GALVIN: Any attempt I am going to maketo answer that will be based on the assumption thatyou've got the money. if you don't have the money,and you can't get the money, why, I believe the alter-native is obvious; that is, that you get all the shelvingyou can. From 40,000 to 100,000 is really not suchextraordinary growth, and it is amazing how fastthose shelves will fill up. It shouldn't create thetemptation for us to keep junk on the shelf, to be sure,but I have a suspicion that your 40,000 volumes areover-crowded and that your pages are having a toughtime. Sixty to 66 percent of capacity in a public li-brary type of operation, you see, makes it a browsing


type of setting. This wouldn't apply to a research li-brary, with compact storage and that sort of thing,but, in your case, you don't want your shelves too full,anyway. So, if you have the money, go ahead and getthe shelves, because that money may disappear andyou may have trouble getting it at another time. Thepsychology of getting money out of the community forbuilding continues to amaze me. I have about con-cluded (and I have no scientific background for this)that it takes on the average about 1.9 bond issue elec-tions to have a successful one. Many communitieshave to have two elections and some of them havethree; others are fortunate to succeed with only one.I have not experienced the last. I have very littlefaith any more in the types of campaigns ordinarilyused in raising bond issues. I think it may have to dowith a great deal of psychologically complicated modi-fications in attitudes which occur between the announce-ment of a proposed election date and the time the elec-tion comes off. Many factors are working: otherelections going on; stories in the newspapers; whatthe people are interested in; how the stock market isdoing; how tax collections have been proceeding; howbond issues were passed in a neighboring communityfor schools. I can tell you this: If you have the money,I would recommend that you put the stacks in.

QUESTION: I think I can state this without thebenefit of the microphone. It is just an interestingsidelight to the question of shelving and economy andthat of having money or no money. If you knew thatyou could not get all of the money now but that youwere to get some of it later, and also that later, youmight have to accept a different kind of shelving, thenwhat I would suggest is that you could perhaps con-sider using the money that you get now to put in yourstuds minus your shelves and then buy your shelveslater. At least you have the satisfaction of having thecomplete type of shelving that you would want.

QUESTION: I wonder if I could have two manu-facturers' representatives comment on the growingtendency to require local bidders to be granted alatitudesay, one percent, 5 percent, 10 percentonthe money bid.

MR. GELLER: Would the manufacturers' repre-sentatives comment on that? Mr. Lombard, wouldyou care to start off?

MR. LOMBARD: I think that is a matter for thecommunity to decide for itself. I think that if I werea dealer in a town, I would appreciate that option.

But I am not certain that I would be justified infeeling that way, because I wouldn't be sure that Icould make a contribution that would be worth thatone percent. There is this, however, to be said forthe local dealer. He invariably is a responsible citi-zen. He pays taxes. He is available there in caseanything goes wrong. If a complaint is to be made, heis no further away than your telephone. I believe if Iwere bidding on the job where the dealer received aone percent preference, I would bid through the localdealer and let him have his one percent.

MR. GELLER: Mr. Syren.

114

MR. SYREN: Well, this came as a small shockto me. I didn't realize that communities were reach-ing that stage. I do know that the state of Wisconsinhas had a law of that kind for many years. I knowthat it works to the disadvantage of some companiesin Wisconsin when they bid in other states. So, Icould see that a local option of that kind might affectthe non-local dealer if he were bidding in a particularcommunityif he were trying to sell some stationeryor a typewriter or a filing cabinetand he had to givethe preference to other dealers.

I wasn't aware that that was a growing tendency,but I think I would do the same as Mr. Lombard did;I would try and find a local dealer.

MR. GELLER: Another question?QUESTION: I would like to ask any member of

the panel, or all of them: is there a preference forhaving stacks installed as equipment later as againstmaking stack installation a part of the building con-tract?

MR. LOMBARD: Why, I would say that whetherthe book stacks should be included as a part of thegeneral contract or let as a separate contract woulddepend upon the type of book stacks to be installed,and their relation to the building. For instance, withregard to multi-tier book stacks, it might be consid-ered good practice to include them with the generalcontract. We have had very pleasant relations withgeneral contractors whose contracts included thebook stacks. And I think the owner, where that ar-rangement is specified, is motivated by the desire tocentralize the responsibility in one personthe gen-eral contractor. However, of late, there appear to befewer general contracts which include book stacksthan was the practice of several years ago.

MR. GELLER: Mr. Syren, would you commenton that and also perhaps cover the differential of therespective contractors' profit on this thing? Is therea differential?

MR. SYREN: I think Mr. Lombard is right inthat perhaps the only thing that could be consideredin the general contract would be a multi-tier stack.The one thing I think you might lose if yen put instacks with the general contract is contrc 1. Some-times a specification can be written so tha t a lumpsum is allowed for a given contract and the authorityfor awarding of that contract to the bidder should bein the hands of the library board or whoever happensto be the purchasing authority. We do know that gen-eral contractors are not going to handle a fifty- or ahundred-thousand-dollar contract without some com-pensation. It is only logical that he should be ex-pected to get some compensation. As a result, I be-lieve that it may cost you slightly more to have ithandled in a general contract way than other ways.But for anything beyond thatsuch as free-standingstacks, or wood shelving, or a charging desk or otherth'-gs to be placed out on the floorI can see no ad-,,.stages in placing them through a general contractor.

MR. GELLER: Thank you. Any more questions?I would like to have some comments or questions from

the audience based on the experience they have beenhaving with purchasing agencies. We have been skirt-ing this subject, and I don't think there is a purchas-ing agent in the audience to defend himself; however,perhaps we could get into this.

COMMENT FROM THE FLOOR: I would like tomake some observations on problems which come upwhen you have the stacks and certain other facilitiesinstalled by people other than the general contractorsand architects. In most of our public building pro-grams, we usually find ourselves running out of time.We must bring other contractors infor example, asupplier contractorearlier than might be preferred.These other contractors are going to be in the build-ing along with the general contractor and the problemarises as to how the work is to be coordinated. Some-one must assume the responsibility for saying that thebuilding is acceptable before it is ready for occupancy.Basically, the general contractor 5s responsible whilehis work continues, but when other contractors entersuch as suppliersthere is the possibility of damageto the finished portions. Then the municipality mustassume the responsibility of protecting the propertyagainst damage, theft, and so forth. A general con-tractor, we have found from our experience, realizesthat he has a great many problems in this respect,and he would prefer to stay out of them.

Moreover, if you include stacks, for example, inyour request for alternate bids, in many cases, yourover-all cost will not be increased. I have found that,in many projects, the final costs as related to six outof eight bids will be no higher than the original quotes.

Of course, it is very important that the architector whoever else is supervising the workmake surethat the specifications are met. There are contrac-tors who, given a free hand, will try to peddle bids ontheir own, or will try to get away with lower specifi-cations and pocket the difference in cost.

The main point I would like to mention here isthat problems come up, not simply because of timingand the various people who want to get into the job,but because of other reasons. For example, the manwho happens to be mayor during the period of the pro-ject wants it completed during his term. Thus, pres-sure is exerted which might produce overlapping invarious parts of the work.

QUESTION: I would like to bring up the subjectof labor unions. In our last branch installation, themanufacturer of the circulating desk, a union agent,dropped by and stopped the work because the circula-tion desk wasn't put together by a member of the localunion. Are there any other examples of that kind ofthing?

QUESTION: That brings up a second question.If a particular area is subject to picketing, would youinclude in your specifications the requirement thatthe work be done by union labor?

RESPONSE (from the floor): In some places, thelaws require that labor regulations be complied with.I would not include the statement in the specificationsunless it was required by law. It is still the case that,


ft

when you encounter a situation like that, the succes-ful bidder is responsible for getting the desk in. Con-fidentially, what I would do, is to tell him to comeback Sunday night when nobody is there and put it up.

MR. GELLER: Any more questions?COMMENT: I would like to comment briefly on

the matter of purci-.asing agents. It seems to me that,in principle and in theory, the idea of having a pur-chasing agent to serve a community is a very goodone. The real problem seems to arise in the amountof information available to the purchasing agent aboutlibrary equipment and how he may best get that infor-mation.

MR. GELLER: Do any of you gentlemen wish tocomment?

MR. SYREN: I think that a purchasing agent is alegitimate officer of any city. And if he has been del-egated the authority to do the buying, then he shouldhave information. However, I think it is up to the li-brarian (if you are talking about library equipment)to consult with the purchasing agent so he will be in-formed about the type of equipment the librarianwants, and so he will know something about the opera-tion of a library. I don't think you should simply takea set of specifications or a list of equipment to thepurchasing agent and say, is what I want tobuy." He might have other ideas. I think that, if you

36 Specificatn Writing and Bidding Procedures

bring him into your confidence, describe the job youare doing and explain why you want to do certainthings, he will be a bit more understanding of yourproblem. I think that, if your representatives or con-sultantwhoever is working with you on the contractcan meet with the purchasing agent and do a littleselling, your lot will be made quite a bit easier.

MR. GALVIN: Generally, I believe that purchas-ing agents are made out of the same kind of stuff ascollege presidents, library boards of trustees, col-lege trustees, city managers, county commissionchairmen, and so on. Occasionally, one of them willbe quite difficult to deal with, but that presents a chal-lenge for you. What Mr. Syren has said is correct;you've got to do not only a public relations job, butyou must also make the purchasing agent feel that heis a part of your team; make him feel that the libraryis vital to the community and that having good ma-terials in the library is important. If he can under-stand this, then he will join your team as will the citymanager or the college president. It is partly a mat-ter of public relations, if you will permit the use ofthat term.

MR. GELLER: The problem also goes back tothe writing of the specifications; then standing bythem, and selling the purchasing agent on them. Weare educators, too.

A

4

Equipment and Methodsin Catalog Card Reproduction

In the Friday morning program, Forrest Carhartintroduced Joseph Treyz, Head, New Campuses Pro-gram of the University of California, who delivered apaper on equipment and methods in catalog card re-production.

JOSEPH H. TREYZ: This paper is a general in-troduction to catalog card reproduction. It is also in-tended to serve as an interim report until the recentstudy conducted by the Library Technology Project ispublished.

Card reproduction is a small part of the broaderfields of information dispersal and duplication. It isalso one of the least standardized aspects of librarytechnology. Information and facilities for evaluatingthe different processes are rare. trticles in libraryjournals or technical publications ordinarily consideronly one process in an individual library. If a compar-ison is made, it is usually based on an inferior methodthat had forced the library to consider a new method.

Important considerations in the reproduction ofcatalog cards are the following:1. The information on catalog cards is expensive to

assemble.2. This information is essential and should be re-

produced on all cards.3. Catalog cards are produced in large quantities;

i.e., library requirements range from one thou-sand to five hundred thousand cards a year.

4. Cards must be durable: The stock must be sturdyand the ink permanent.

5. Little variation in card size can be tolerated.6. Except for two cards in a set, all cards have their

information arranged differently and, in mostcases, must be handled individually.

7. Cards should be added to the catalog immediately.Delay usually involves the insertion of temporaryrecords, an expensive procedure.

8. Cards must be reproduced in all languages andall alphabets.Because no two libraries' card needs are the

same, no single reproduction process, method, orpiece of equipment can meet the needs of all libraries.

Printed cards

Libraries may either buy printed cards or repro-

duce their own. Printed cards can be obtained com-plete with headings and call numbers from the H. W.Wilson Co., or from a cataloging service such asAlanar. More often, however, they are purchasedfrom the H. W. Wilson Co. or the Library of Congressin sets of unit cards, and the library must add the callnumbers and headings.

It is important to remember that when the librarypurchases printed cards it is really purchasing cata-loging information and, in the process, receives thenecessary catalog cards. Only when another meansof obtaining Library of Congress cataloging informa-tion is availablefor example, LC proofsheets,.theprinted National Union Catalog, or American BookPublishing Recordis it possible for a library to con-sider reproducing its own cards. This is practicalonly for medium-size and large libraries. It is tooexpensive for a small library to subscribe to proof-sheets or to search for the entry in American BookPublishing Record and then proceed to reproduce aset or sets of cards.

For small libraries, whose catalogs have beenbuilt with complete cards (e.g., Wilson), that methodof obtaining cards is the most economical. Libraries,however, which have not used the complete cards inthe past may find that making the changes necessaryto fit such cards into their catalogs is more expensivethan having their own call numbers and headings typedon LC or Wilson unit cards.

It is quite common to hear talk today of acceptingLibrary of Congress cards as they stand. Librariansshould be warned against this dangerous practice.Continued blind acceptance of printed cards almostguarantees the destruction of a catalog. The catalogis a tool that must change with every change in mod-ern society. New subjects are created daily, and oldones are called by new names. Both the Library ofCongress and Dewey classifications change to keeppace with new developments and expanding fields.All of these directly affect the catalog, which mustrecord and absorb these changes. If it does not, thecatalog is an inconsistent, undependable, and inac-curate tool. Thus, every purchased (printed) cardthat goes into a catalog should be checked for mainentry, added entries, subject headings, and classifi-cation.

Equipment and Methods in Catalog Card Reproduction 37

Ed

Typewriters

All libraries must type some cards. This is truefor the large library with elaborate card reproductionprocesses as well as for the small library.

Since differences among the better-known makesof typewriters are usually insignificant, the choice isa matter of operator preference or taste and might becompared with the choice between a Ford, a Chevrolet,and a Plymouth. However, machines should be testedfor card work before they are purchased. Some stand-ard models may need card platens so that the top andbottom lines can be clearly and neatly typed. Cata-loging also requires special keys; for example, brack-ets, a script £, accents, etc. If a library processeslarge numbers of foreign titles, other special keysare desirable.

An electric typewriter should be purchased if themachine will be used extensively. Although costingabout $200 more than a standard model, an electricmachine is 20 percent faster with straight typing and15 percent faster with card work. The copy is alsoclearer. Electric typewriters are especially usefulfor typing stencils or masters because the keys strikewith a uniform pressure and produce sharper lines.

With proportional-spacing electric typewriters,it is possible to place 10 percent more information ona catalog card. This same feature, however, makesit difficult to correct errors and more than offsetsthe advantages of these machines. Moreover, suchmachines cost 50 percent more than standard elec-trics and for this reason are not recommended forcard work.

Small type faces such as IBM text type are avail-able on most typewriters. These faces allow for theinsertion of 35 to 55 percent more material on a cardthan is possible with the use of elite type, and 40 to65 percent more material than with pica type. Somelibraries, whose detailed cataloging information oc-casionally requires a second card, use this type size.However, once these cards are in the catalog, theyare more difficult to read, and the more such cardsmake up the catalog, the n.- ire difficult the catalog isto use. The small typefaces, therefore, are not rec-ommended for catalog cards.

A Vari-Typer is a versatile machine that has ca-pacity for two sizes of type or a double alphabet andone can, for example, put Russian or Greek charac-ters on these machines. A Vari-Typer costs about$1,000. however, and is slower to operate than stand-ard typewriters. *

Most libraries that type all of their card: wastetime and money. The typing of cards is expensive, asis the proofreading of every card. When a librarytypes 4,000 individual cards a year (approximately1,000 titles), it is close to the point where investing

*The new IBM Selectric typewriter should meet allof the various typing needs of a library in areas in whichlibrary-keyed balls are available. These balls are easy toput on the typewriter and will provide not only different sizesand kinds of type, but as many non-Roman alphabets as needed.

in a duplicator as a means of reproducing cards wouldbe more economical.

Not all cards, however, should be mechanicallyreproduced. If only two or three cards are needed,they should be typed. The point where one snould be-gin ,reproducing cards mechanically is elusive andvariable. It depends primarily upon the length of cata-loging copy. A set with considerable information onthe catalog card (that is, seven or eight lines) shouldbe reproduced when four or more cards are needed.Cards with a small amount of information should bereproduced when six or more cards are needed. Uni-versity libraries usually duplicate their cards at fouror five; public libraries at six or seven.

Stencil duplicatorspost card size

Small stencil duplicators look very much like toysand, in most cases, were designed for the inexpensivereproduction of post card notices. Fortunately, thecatalog card is a similar size, and many of these ma-chines have been used advantageously for catalog cardreproduction. All such devices work on the sameprinciple. A single-card stencil is perforated with astandard typewriter. Stencils are placed on the ma-chine and, as pressure is applied either by pressingdown or turning a drum, ink is forced onto the cardstock through the perforations.

The Print-O-Matic is one of these machines. Itis about the size of an ordinary breadbox and sells forapproximately $20. A central drum contains ink whichfeeds the ink pad around it. On some small duplica-tors, the ink does not distribute itself well, and it isoften necessary to brush the ink over the pad eachtime a stencil is run. Even then the ink may not comethrough the stencil evenly, and a number of wastecards must be run off first. It is also difficult to ad-just the stencil on the machine to get exact registra-tion. As might be expected, this can be a fairly messyoperation. It does, however, save money.

The Card-Master costs about $45. The stencil istyped in the same way but, in this case, fits on aroller-applicator which has a covered surface andlooks like a small, hand, desk blotter. Ink is pouredinto a reservoir which dampens a pad over the curvedsurface, or it may be brushed on the outside of thepad. After the stencil is placed on the machine, it canbe rolled across paper towels or similar material un-til a good image is formed. This eliminates wastingcard stock. One hundred or more cards can be runfrom a single stencil.

Another important machine in this category is theChiang Catalog Card Duplicator. This device costsabout $54 and is approximately the same size as theothers. The Chiang is one of the few machines de-signed specifically for reproducing cards. The firstmodel was not very successful. However, in 1961,Mr. Chiang came out with a redesigned second model.Reports indicate that it eliminates many of the trou-bles of the earlier one.** In the second model, cards

38 Equipment and Methods in Catalog Card Reproduction

1

**A third model is now on the market.

Tr

are manually inserted into a small box. Ink is pouredinto the box and the card is produced by a push-and-pull method. The first few cards may be wasted.

When more than six sets of cards are needed forone title on any of these machines, it pays to type thelongest added entry at the top of the stencil. Addedentry cards are produced first, the heading is thenblocked off with Scotch tape and the necessary unitcards run off.

All of these small machines have two major draw-backs: First, they are slowthe cards must be hand-fed into the machines and often individually removed.Second, the ink dries slowly. Cards often must belaid aside individually and allowed to dry, or blottingpaper must be inserted between each card as it comesoff the machine. Cards laid aside often take a day ortwo to dry, especially in humid weather. Some li-braries expedite this by inserting the cards betweennewspapers or the pages of an old telephone book.Improved, fast-drying inks are on the market, andare usually interchangeable in these machines. Li-brarians should try several to find the one that worksbest in their machine. It is also important to try dif-ferent stencils. These also vary in quality; some aremore satisfactory than others.

The advantages of these small duplicators arethose of any automatic process. They are faster andless expensiv9 than the process of typing and proof-reading each card. In addition, the investment is small.

When these small machines cannot handle the re-quired volume of card reproduction, it is time toswitch to a full-size stencil duplicator.

Stencil duplicatorsfull-size

Prices for this equipment range from $200 to$800. The A. B. Dick Company, the Gestetner Cor-poration, and the Rex-Rotary Distributing Corp. areamong the better known manufacturers. Such ma-chines utilize the same principles as the smallerstencil machines, but are better built and faster.They offer the choice of creating stencils by typingor electronic scanning, the use of fluid or paste inks,or manual or electric operation.

The electronic scanner is a recent development.It is about as lame as an electric typewriter, has anumber of dials and two cylinders. Information to becopied is placed around one cylinder. Around theother is placed a stencil. As an electronic eye scansthe copy, corresponding holes are burned into thestencil, thus producing an exact image of the cardcopy. The process is slow and it takes seven minutesto scan a ten-inch area. Although it is possible to getsix catalog cards into this area, this is only slightlymore rapid than typing six cards onto a stencil. More-over, the image is somewhat fuzzy and the machine isquite expensiveabout $2,000. If such a machine werealready available for use by a library, it should beconsidered for special rental or purchase.

Thus typing is still the best method of producinga stencil. Stencils are available for typing singly or

in strips of two or four. Some have guide lines markedon them for catalog card typing and contain carbon-impregnated buffers and backing sheets for easy proof-reading. Fast-drying cm' action fluid permits rapid,easy corrections.

The machines using a paste ink are slightly lessexpensive and are simpler to use. However, paste inkdries slowly on cards. Some large machines haveinter-leaving attachments. This gadget automaticallydrops a blotting card between each catalog card as itcomes out of the duplicator. When several sets ofcards have been run off, they are removed from theinter-leaving attachment. They are quite satisfactory,but they do slow down card production. Another dis-advantage is that paste ink machines may producewaste cards each time a stencil is run off.

Fluid-ink machines are better for longer runsand higher speeds. They require more care, but theyproduce fewer waste cards. Fast-drying inks elimi-nate problems of drying the cards. One can do sheetwork on these machines but, for best results, one ma-chine should be used exclusively for card work. Thethree- by five-inch area the card stencil uses is oftensaturated with ink, while the rest of the drum is not.This makes it difficult to do good sheet work.

To control the ink on these drums, it is often nec-essary to place a mask over the ink pad witi the three-by five-inch area cut out. Normally, this mask isgood for only one day's production.

One company, the Fichimprim Company, hasadapted a standard stencil machine, the Rex-RotaryM4 Duplicator, for card reproduction. The silkscreen of the duplicator is permanetly masked sothat ink flows only through the area under the cardstencil. The pressure rolls have also been modifiedso that they are effective only over an area four andone-half inches wide. A special clamp has been ad-ded which permits the rapid placement and removalof the stencil. 'Tnfortunately, at the time of the Li-brary Techno,:-.y Project's Study, this machine wastoo new to permit an appraisal of long-term perform-ance.

When more than 15,000 stencils (about 85,000cards) are used in a year, it is very likely more eco-nomical to use an offset machine. These figures are,of course, approximations. A particular library'sdecision to change its card reproduction process willdepend upon the average length of its cataloging copy,the average number of cards in its sets, the averagenumber of sets per title, the cost of the equipment,and the average hourly wage.

Offset duplicators

Offset duplication, i.e., multilithing, is most sat-isfactory for large libraries. Prices of these ma-chines range from $1,300 to $5,000. In most libraries,offset duplicators are successfully used for otherwork besides running card stock. Such added use ofthe machine may be necessary to justify the expenseof the machine's purchase.


L4

Offset machines are larger and faster than sten-cil machines. Small models are a little bigger than acard table. The larger models are the size of a tele-phone booth placed on its side. They allow severalsets of cards to b3 produced at once. Many librariesrun off sets of four, six, or eight. Card stock mayhave the holes pre-drilled or holes may be drilledafter the card stock has been cut to size.

The basic principle here is different from sten-cil duplication. It is based on the fact that oil andwater do not mix. After the master is created, themultilithing starts by covering the master with awater-solution. Once the master has been placed onthe machine, and the machine started, only the carbon-impregnated typewritten characters attract the oil-based ink. This ink is transferred to a roller orblanket that, in turn, transfers it to card stock as thestock comes into contact with this roller. After eachmaster has been run, the roller must be wiped cleanbefore another can be run.

An especially important consideration in pur-chasing an offset machine is the availability of serv-ice, ordinarily furnished by the equipment supplier.The machines are delicate and complicated and oftenrequire considerable adjustment and attention.

When more than eight sets of one title are beingmultilithed, it will pay to use a heading overlay mas-ter for each added entry after the main entry andshelf cards are run off. A small strip of a masterwith an added entry typed on it is placed over theoriginal master in the same position as an added en-try would be, and the completed added entry card isrun off. This method will produce a line across thecards at the edge of the overlay, but this can be pre-vented with the use of a specially grooved roller. Thegroove is directly beneath the line of the overlay; thus,the line is not printed.

Another method is to use a cut-out roller to deletean added entry in machines equipped with two rollers.In this case, the master has the longest added entryalready typed on it. The added entry cards are re-produced first with the complete roller; then the nec-essary unit cards are produced with the cut-out rollerwhich deletes the added entry.

This method is economical for about five sets ofcards per title. It is not as practical as using overlayheadings, because only one added entry can be pro-duced this way; all others must be typed individually.

An advantage of offset reproduction is the numberof ways in which it is possible to create a master.Masters can be typed with a standard office typewriter,using a multilith ribbon. Electric typewriters alsoneed a multilith ribbon, although the use of a carbonribbon gives the best results.

If Library of Congress proof cards are availableand a library has a high percentage of foreign titles,the Xerox process or Ektalith process should be con-sidered to make masters.Xerox

The Xerox machine consists of a camera, a proc-

esser, and a fuser. All are rented as a unit. Thecamera transfers the image to be reproduced, theprocesser does the, Xeroxing, and the fuser makes theimage permanent.

The operation is based on the peculiar character-istics of selenium, an element that has high electricalresistance in the dark and relatively low electricalresistance when illuminated. An extremely thin filmof selenium deposited on an aluminum plate is thebasic working tool of Xerography. The first step inthe process is to charge this plate electrically, torender it light-sensitive. The charged plate is thenexposed by a camera. When exposed, the dark areasof the image retain the electrostatic charge, while thelight areas lose the charge. Resinous black powderis cascaded over the plate. This powder is attractedto and held by the charged area, and thus brings outthe image. An offset master (or perhaps card stock)is laid on this plate and the powder is transferred toit electrically. The master is then cleaned and bakedto fuse the resinous powder to the master.

One advantage of Xerography over typing arisesout of the former's ability to reproduce a photographicimage. The image is reproduced without error andwithout special knowledge; thus, long, complicatedcatalog cardseven those in non-Roman alphabetsare reproduced without difficulty. The second savingcomes in the elimination of proofreading. In addition,the machine is easy to operate. No special skills orknowledge are required, and it is a completely dryprocess. Through the camera, it is also possible toincrease or reduce the size of the image.

An important advantage of a Xeroxed master isthat the copy can be changed. If necessary, editionsor the call number can be easily wiped off, the mas-ter fused, then inserted into a typewriter, and a newedition or call number typed on.

Xerox does have disadvantages. Humidity tendsto negate the electrical charge. Unless a room is de-humidified or air conditioned, the machine will notperform satisfactorily on humid days. Cleaning themaster is a delicate, time-consuming process althoughthe use of an eraser board can reduce the cleaningtime as much as 50 percent. Xerox plates are expen-sive and easily damaged, and with continuous use theylose their strength.

It is possible to Xerox four, six, or eight titles atonce. With eight titles, however, the image must bereduced at least 8 percent to get all of the cataloginginformation onto the Xerox plate. All cards are placedwith the call numbers on the inside so that the four onthe right are right-side up, while the four on the leftare upside-down. Because reduction draws the imagein, this places the wider margin always on the right-hand side of the reproduced cards.

Model B, an early model, rents for $50 a month.Model D, the latest model, rents for about $100 amonth. These machines can process up to 35,000titles a year. When card reproduction needs exceedthis figure, a library should switch to Ektalith tocreate its masters.


Ektalith

Ektalith is a dye-transfer, projection-photocopyingprocess developed by Eastman-Kodak. The Ektalithequipment consists of a loader-processer, and a trans-fer unit. In addition, a standard copying camera mustbe used to expose the transfer paper to the copy. Sev-eral models of copy cameras are available. A com-plete system sells for $1,700 or rents for $104 amonth. Cameras are available with either vertical orhorizontal exposure trays to suit the requirements ofthe library. Catalog cards to be copied are placed inthese trays. Exact registration is important at thisstage and it may be necessary to use a T-square toalign the four or more catalog cards to be copied.

After exposure, the negative is developed in asmall box which is, in effect, its own a rkroom, sothe process is quite simple so far as the operator isconcerned. The negative is a gelatin-dye emulsionpaper. A paper master is placed in contact with thenegative in the box and the dye is transferred to themaster, thus producing the image. Upon removalfrom the box, the negative and master are separatedand allowed to dry. As in the Xerox process, the mas-ter picks up shadows and must be cleaned to get goodcopy. Cleaning is done with a gum eraser after themaster has dried. It is also possible to increase theexposure to burn out some of the shadows or to re-duce the copy 5 percent which eliminates most of thelines that form around the edges of the card.

Ektalith is not affected by humidity, is faster thanXerox, and produces cr1;..., ...t least as sharp as thatproduced by Xerox.

Other machines that create masters

Offset masters can also be produced by Verifax,another Eastman-Kodak process. This dye-transfermethod uses contact photocopying rather than projec-tion photocopying (as does Ektalith). The contactmethod does not y duce as sharp a copy, and regis-tration is a problem. Few, if any, libraries areusing Verifax machines for the reproduction of cardmasters.

Another method of producing offset masters iswith the electronic scanning machine mentioned ear-lier in connection with the making of stencils. Thecopy is made in the same manner; that is, scannedelectronically, but a special electro-sensitive offsetmaster is used in the place of a stencil.

The same difficulties are present in this process.The machine is expensive, the reproduction is of poorquality, and the process is slow. There is the furtherlimitation that these offset masters must be usedwithin eight hours. The process is not recommendedfor reproducing catalog cards.

Two other methods of creating offset mastersare available, but are not recommended. One is di-rect photographic transfer and the other, the use of aThermofax machine. The former is too expensive,and the latter gives reproduction of poor quality.

Other card reproduction machines

A number of other methods of reproducing cardsare used in libraries. Many are too costly or produceinferior results. The more common processes arediscussed below.

The least expensive is fluid duplication. A. B.Dick, Ditto, and Standard Duplicating Machines Cor-poration make fluid duplication machines selling for$80 to $850.

In the fluid duplication process, the cataloginginformation is typed on a Hectograph carbon papermaster. The master is cut to card size and placed ona machine which works like a stencil duplicator. Al-cohol activates an aniline dye which is transferredfrom the master to the card stock as the stock is fedthrough the machine. The aniline dye creates the fa-miliar purple image which is, unfortunately, not per-manent. For this reason, fluid duplication is an un-acceptable process for reproducing cards for mostlibraries.

This disadvantage may be eliminated by using a"Perms -Copy" fluid recently developed by Ditto, Inc.If this fluid is successful, fluid duplication may besatisfactory for many school or public libraries.However, pending substantial proof of permanency ofthe image, fluid duplication should not be consideredfor card reproduction.

Some libraries use addressing machines. Thereare two types: those using fiber stencils and thoseusing metal plates.

The Elliott Company makes the fiber stencil equip-ment. The stencils come mounted in cardboard frames.These must be thoroughly soaked before they can betyped and thus are first placed in a moistener. Theyare then typed with a standard office typewriter. Thestencils are placed in an addressing machine where aprinting pad contacts the stencil, forcing ink throughthe perforations onto the card stock.

Addressing machines are expensive, costingabout $1,500. They are, moreover, not recommendedfor card work because the size of the stencil restrictsthe amount of cataloging information to nine shortenedlines.

Addressing machines using metal plates as mas-ters are made by the Addressograph-Multigraph Cor-poration. These machines cos,. ,P00 and also re-quire a $2,000 auxiliary device w); , hich the metalplates are stamped. Thus basic , pment costs arehigh.

This process is started by embossing the metalplates with the catalog information. The plates arethen inserted into metal frames and the frames placedin the magazine of an addressing machine. The ma-chine automatically brings the plates to printing posl-tion. The platen, which is mounted on the operatingarm of the machine, is brought down against the cardstock and the copy is reproduced through an inkedribbon.

Because this method can produce only nine linesof copy, it has no advantage over fiber stencils and is


ii

i

more expensive. Both methods are unsuitable forcatalog card reproduction.

Automatic typewriters are also used for catalogcard reproduction. The Friden Company produces theFlexowriter, Remington Rand and Royal McBee havesimilar machines. Prices range from $2,000 to $3,500.This process cuts coded perforations on paper tape asthe catalog copy is typed. After removal, the ends ofthe tape are joined and the tape loop is placed in atape reader. The reader operates the typewriter au-tomatically by electrical impulse. As a set of cardsis typed by the tape, cards can be fed individually, ora continuous-form card stock can be used. The latteris perforated to a three- by five-inch size, and is torn,or burst, apart later. The use of continuous cardstock allows the operator to be free for other duties,such as typing headings on the cards, but producescatalog cards with rough top edges which wear poorlyand are easily soiled.

An automatic typewriter cannot produce unit cardsmuch faster than a good tydist. The saving resultsonly when the operator is freed for other duties; andbecause, after the original card is proofread, no fur-ther proofreading is necessary. Even so, this methodis very slow compared to stencil or offset duplication.

The automatic typewriter method is also expen-sive, using delicate machines that are easily thrownout of operation. Errors must be caught at the timethey are made; otherwise a new tape must be cut.Correcting errors is more time-consuming than inmost other processes. Additional errors can beavoided, however, because all copy except the portionto be corrected will be produced automatically. Thesemachines are also noisy. It is questionable whetherthey should be used in a room where cataloging is done.

Tape typewriters may be practical in card repro-duction if the typewriters are used elsewhere in the li-brary's operation. Otherwise their slowness, noise, andexpense make them impractical for card reproduction.

Cards can be reproduced directly by electrostat-ics. This is possible with standard Xerox equipment,with the Xerox 914, and with the Xerox Copyflo. Re-production is also possible with other electrostaticmachines which are beginning to come on the market.The latter may make the real breakthrough in cardreproduction and, perhaps, all kinds of copy reproduc-tion. These electrostatic machines work on the sameprinciple as Xerox. The light-sensitive substance inthis case is an inexpensive compound, zinc oxide. Avery thin coat of this material can be spread on mas-ters or card stock. The paper is charged, exposed tothe cataloger's copy, dusted with resinous powder,and then fused. This eliminates the need for the ex-pensive and delicate selenium plate or drum of theXerox process.

The first machines being marketed are rollermachines. These are not particularly adaptable tocard reproduction. Registration and image qualityare poor when the cataloger's copy must flow arounda series of rollers. Only machines with flat exposurebeds should be considered for card work.

The new machines are also currently priced justbelow their Xerox competitors. As more models comeout, they will compete with the older ones and theprice should fall.

At present, standard Xerox equipment is beingused to reproduce cards directly by Xerography. Somecommercial companies have gone into the reproductionof catalog cards using the Copyflo machine. (The ma-chine rents for more than an individual library can af-ford.) So far, this procedure has provided the leastexpensive way of reproducing an entire catalog. It hasnot been quite so successful, however, in reproducingsets of catalog cards.

The cataloger's copy must be microfilmed, an ex-posure being made for each card needed in a set. Thecards are run off on continuous-flow card stock andare later cut to size and punched. The result is onlyfair. Many cards have a background haze and somehave unwanted spots and lines. The cost ranges fromthree and one half to seven cents a card and there isusually more delay than in less complicated methodsof reproduction. The operation also makes the librarydependent on an outside source for its reproduction ofcards which is a disadvantage because such sourcesare often insensitive to, and uncomprehending of, alibrary's needs and requirements.

The Xerox 914 is an electrostatic copier, designedfor office work. Many larger libraries have rentedthis machine for general copying, and have tried toadapt it for card reproduction. A few libraries areusing it to reproduce masters and at least one is usingit to reproduce cards directly.

The Xerox 914 is not easily adapted to either typeof reproduction. Those producing masters are able toget four titles on a strip. Exact reproduction is en-sured by putting the cataloger's copy in a jig. Thereis no difficulty in producing a master; the problemscome in trying to clean the end product of the familiarunwanted blotches and lines that have been fused intothe master while it was in the machine. Cards pro-duced directly are similarly untidy. Also, the Xerox914 machine was not designed to handle the heavy cardstock. There have been occasions in which card stockhas stuck in machines and burned. Significantly, everymachine is equipped with a fire extinguisher.

Xerox Models B and D can directly produce cardswhich can be cleaned before they are fused. The pro-duce is excellent but, unfortunately, too expensive forgeneral card reproduction. Xerox is recommendedonly for the production of masters, using the StandardModel B or Model D equipment.

A few libraries use diffusion transfer methodswith such machines as the Dri-Stat and the CopeaseDuplex Book Copier. Some have also used the Diazoprocess and a direct photographic process such asthe Photostat, but such uses are rare.

Conclusion

The future for card reproduction is very bright.The development of the new electrostatic machines


Ty. ' 1WI14,..,, 1.1.W.4.001.71,..e.,

promises dramatically reduced costs to large librar-ies. For small and medium-size libraries, the Coun-cil on Library Resources has under way a project todevelop a new, card-size, multiple-stencil duplicatingmachine. The unique feature of this machine is itsability to reproduce, from a single stencil, sets ofcompleted cards with as many as five different head-ings within a set. This feature will be especially im-portant to libraries requiring several sets of cardsfor each title and will make the stencil duplicatingprocess even more attractive in comparison withother processes.

The most exciting development in catalog cardtechnique today is the Library of Congress "Cardswith Books" Program. This program makes it pos-sible for libraries to receive LC cards with the bookswhen they come from participating book dealers orpublishers.

Cards with Books offer some of the advantages ofCataloging-in-Source, and there is no question of itsfeasibility. Its economies result from the ability ofthe Library of Congress to send out multiple sets ofLC cards for a fraction of the total cost of sendingthem individually to libraries. Book dealers and pub-lishers will order sets of cards for each title to bestocked in quantities of fifty or more. The packages ofcards will be stored alongside these books and when alibrary orders a copy, a set of LC cards is placed inthe book and the package shipped to the library. Thesets are standard 3 SAT, which gives each librarythree author cards, and one card for each subject, ad-ded entry, and title traced. They are prepared andpacked at the Library of Congress; the dealer's

only role in this process is to buy the cards andpass them on.

For libraries, the system will eliminate order-ing Library of Congress cards, of filing the records,and of placing the cards with the books when theyarrive.

The cost of the sets to the dealers is low enoughto permit them to absorb it and not pass the cost onto libraries. However, even if they do pass this coston to the libraries, the result is far cheaper to the li-brary than the cost of purchasing individual sets ofLC cards today.

Few dealers now participate in the program. Afew who do are Bro-Dart, Follett Library Book Co.,and Imperial Book Co. Others apparently wish toavoid the extra work and expense. It appears, how-ever, that all it will take is increased demand fromlibrarians to get a majority of dealers into this pro-gram.

The importance of the Cards with Books programto libraries cannot be over-emphasized. Once in ef-fect, it will solve all card reproduction problems forschool libraries and for small and medium-si ze pub-lic libraries. The program will mean substantialsavings to all other libraries, no matter how largeor specialized.

For libraries that cannot wait for these develop-ments and must have equipment now, present choicescan be stated quite simply: A small library shouldbuy a post card-size stencil duplicator. A medium-size library should invest in a full-size stencil dupli-cator. A large library should use an offset machinewith additional Xerox or Ektalith equipment, if needed.


1,

'A. 1114

5

Equipment and Methods in Photocopyingwith Special Emphasis on

Copying from Bound Volumes

Frazer G. Poole presided over the Saturday, June 16,session of the Equipment Institute during whichWilliam R. Hawken, document reproduction consult-ant of Berkeley, California, presented two papers:the first on equipment and methods in photocopyingand the second on equipment and methods in produc-ing full-size copies from microtext. Following Mr.Haw ken's second talk, the meeting was opened toquestions and answers.

WILLIAM R. HAWKEN: My first topic thisafternoon has been announced in the program as"Equipment and Methods in Photocopying with SpecialEmphasis on Copying from Bound Volumes." Some-body had better put some emphasis on copying frombound volumes, since most of the manufacturers cer-tainly aren't. I recently completed a study of twentybook copiers. At least, they were all advertised asmachines capable of making copies from bound vol-umes. Only five of these twenty machines showedany evidence whatsoever of having been designed withthe idea in mind of making a successful copy from abound volume. I use the term "successful'} advisedly:Sometimes you make it and sometimes yoti don't.

All of the machines do a satisfactory job in mak-ing a copy of a loose-sheet original, such as a type-written letter. If, perchance, the shape of a machinelends itself to the copying of a page from a bound vol-ume, then it becomes a book copier, and, what isworse, becomes advertised as such.

If the machine is advertised as a book copier, itis bound to be of interest to librarians.

During the past few years, a seemingly endlessarray of new photocopy machines has been announcedin advertisements. All of these machines are new;everyone is different from. ... Each is better than . . .

and what is more, they are of jet-stream design andfinished in decorator's colors.

The advertisements inform you, in one way oranother, that this machine, or this process, or thismaterial is the one you have been waiting for. Atfirst glance, this may sometimes seem to be so. Andthis is why the Library Technology Project has re-tained meto give that second glance, which is notintended to be withering; but nonetheless, quite a fewnationally advertised book copiers can't stand up to it.

I don't want to be toe hard on the manufacturers.

44 Equipment and Methods in Photocopying

,.......,-......-.....,..........---

They have to live too. The plain, economic fact sim-ply is that there is a very large market for photocopy-ing equipment in the world of business and industry,compared with which the library market is very smallindeed. To design and construct equipment for a lim-ited market is bound to result in high costs and highselling prices, and few manufacturers are willing togo out on that limb. From the standpoint of technol-ogy, there is nothing missing which would preventthe design and manufacture of efficient book copyingequipment. The only thing standing in the way ismoney.

I was recently talking to a manufacturer's repre-sentative about a book copier which his firm is work-ing on. He was somewhat apologetic about the esti-mated selling price of $1,200. He said: "I wish wecould find something else that it could do." In otherwords, another market for it, and a larger one.

With very few exceptions, photocopying equipmentis designed to meet the needs of business and industryand, if, incidentally, it happens to be useful in thecopying of library materials, that is fortunate.

My only quarrel is with machines which are adver-tised as book copiers when they were never designedfor this purpose and do only a very mediocre job.

I think, now, of a scene that occurred recently atthe Museum of Modern Art in New York, at the timewhen a show called "The Art of Assemblage" wasbeing installed. The story goes that John Cage, theComposer, was helping to set up the show, and a visi-tor to the museum happened to find his way into thegallery where Cage was working. After looking atsome of the strange objects around him, he said toCage: "You call that Art?" Cage immediately re-plied: "Hell no!" This really shook the visitor up,because he then said: "Well ... in that case I kindalike it!"

If the manufacturers just wouldn't call thembook copiers.

In the space of a talk such as this, it is impossi-ble to go into a great deal of detail about all of theavailable book copiers currently on the market. Ican only outline for you some of the basic principlesinvolved and give you a synopsis of findings as to theperformance of the twenty book copiers tested. Afterthat, we shall consider certain facts about new

-. 11111Pa

machines which are attracting a good deal ofattention.

There are two methods by which a photographiccopy of a page from a bound volume can be made.I want to review them briefly.

The first of these methods is the contact reflexmethod. In contact reflex copying, a sheet of photo-graphic paper is placed with its light-sensitive sur-face in contact with the page to be copied. It is heldin this position while light is passed through thepaper to the surface of the page where it is reflectedback to the light-sensitive coating.

There are three basic requirements for makinga successful contact or contact reflex copy: completecoverage, unbroken contact, and a correct exposureinterval. Complete coverage simply means that theentire text of the document being copied must be infull view of the light source. Contact means that thesurfaces of the sensitized material and the documentare held in complete and unbroken contact for theduration of the exposure. Of necessity, this requiresa certain amount of pressure. The correct exposureis one that will yield a fully legible copy of the entiretext. It sounds simple enough.

In the course of testing nineteen contact reflexbook copiers, six principal design requirements wereestablished, all of which should be found in a goodmachine. These six requirements come under theheadings of contact, coverage, angle, illumination,pressure, and timing.

1. Contact. The glass contact surface againstwhich the sensitized material and the page to be cop-ied are placed must be (a) perfectly flat and smooth,and (b) thick enough to withstand the pressure neededto achieve contact without any possibility of bendingor breaking.

In several of the machines tested, it was foundthat the glass contact surface was not flat and smooth.In others, the glass was too thin and would bend underthe pressure needed for contact. Either condition willcause breaks in the contact between the page beingcopied and the sensitized material. If the presenceof such conditions goes unrecognized, much wastecan result from repeated and futile attempts toproduce legible copies.

2. Coverage. The method of positioning theglass contact surface over the illumination sourcemust be such that the frame or supports for the glassdo not curtail coverage at the inner margin area.

The most common condition in bound volumescausing difficulty in contact copying is the combina-tion of a narrow inner margin with a tight binding.In many cases, it is impossible to position the entirepage in contact with the surface of the glass becauseof the tightness of the binding. If, in addition to suchlosses of coverage caused by the binding, an additionalloss is incurred because of the thickness of the sup-port for the glass, the percentage of pages which can-not be copied will be substantially higher.

3. Angle. The angle to which the volume mustbe opened for copying should be 90 degrees or less.

Loss of contact at the inner margin area is sub-stantially greater if a tightly bound volume must bepositioned at an obtuse rather than an acute angle.

4. Illumination. The illumination system musttransmit light evenly over the entire area of theglass contact surface.

Because of the inherently high contrast of photo-copy materials, small local differences in the inten-sity of the illumination become exaggerated in thecopy. An uneven field of illumination can thereforecause local over- or underexposure to the point ofillegibility. The commonest fault with the illumina-tion systems of a number of the machines tested is afall-off of illumination at the edge of the exposurefield. This can result in underexposure and illegi-bility of the text at the inner margin area, an areawhich is often difficult enough to copy because of thecontact and coverage problems involved.

5. Pressure. A method of applying pressure tothe volume by mechanical means should be provided.

In copying average subjects on machines whichrequire the use of hand pressure for achieving con-tact, pressures of 40 to 60 pounds or more are fre-quently required. In copying pages which are wrin-kled, creased, or warped, pressures of 100 poundsor more are not unusual. This may be more thanyour operator weighs and might be a point to keepin mind when hiring people to operate book copiers.Because, for any given subject, an operator cannotknow how much pressure may be required, the useof excess pressure (and hence of operator effort andconsequent fatigue) is the only way that waste copiesfrom failure to achieve contact can be avoided.

6. Timing. The exposure timing device mustbe accurate, consistent, easily read, easily set,and conveniently located.

In copying pages of which any portion is printedin a small type face, exposure errors of as little as5 percent can make the difference between a legibleand an illegible copy. If the exposure timing deviceperforms erratically, copying such pages becomes ahit-or-miss proposition involving extensive waste.The same will be true if the scale divisions on thetimer are not large enough to be set accurately forsmall increases or decreases in the exposure inter-val required. Where hand pressure must be used toachieve contact, the timer must be within easy reachof the operator.

Suppose we proceed now to look at the box scoresof the nineteen machines tested against these sixrequirements.

1. Three of the nineteen machines did not havean exposing surface flat erough and/or strong enoughfor good over-all contact.

2. Nine out of nineteen machines exhibited fixedcoverage losses extensive enough to limit their abilityto copy from volumes having narrow inner margins.

3. Eighteen of the machines have book positionangles of 90 degrees or more, which caused difficultyand sometimes made it impossible to achieve fullcontact at inner margin areas.

Equipment and Methods in Photocopying 45

4. Eight of the machines had illumination sys-tems showing varying degrees of unevenness whichcaused many remakes and some failures.

5. Fourteen of the machines are not equippedwith a mechanical pressuring system for contact.This also resulted in many remakes and the expend-iture of great physical effort on the part of theoperator.

6. Eight of the machines were equipped withexposure timing devices which were not sufficientlyaccurate or consistent to provide an adequate degreeof control over the exposures required for finelydetailed subjects.

In addition to these defects, seventeen of thenineteen machines require that bound volumes behandled in an upside -down position which, with largeor heavy volumes, is not easy to do and entails aconstant risk of physical damage to the volume.

It will readily be seen that, in copying with ma-chines having one or more of the faults listed, re-makes, waste, and, in some cases, complete failuresare bound to occur, even in the hands of a skillfuloperator.

I recall one manufacturer's representative (whoknew what I was up to) asking me one day what Ithought of his machine, which, by the way, exhibitedquite a number of serious faults. I was instantly re-minded of an incident that occurred at the time whenSir Herbert Beerbohm Tree was England's leadingdrama critic. Sir Herbert had been sent the manu-script of a play written by an aspiring young play-wright with a request for the critic's comment. Afterreading it, Sir Herbert wrote the young man a letter:

My dear Sir:I have read your play. Oh, my dear sir!

Very truly yours,

It should also be pointed out that the averageuser, who is meeting with indifferent success and ahigh percentage of waste, may not know what factorsare causing trouble. He may not know that the glassis not strong enough or its surface not smooth. Hemay not know that remakes for over- or underexpo-sure are the fault of the exposure timing device. In aword, lacking his own testing facilities, he is obligedto assume that the machine has been properly de-signed and constructed to do the job for which it wasintendedan assumption which, as has been shown,is often incorre 2t.

The second method for bound-volume copyingis the optical method.

The essential elements of an optical copier aresimply those of a camera: a lens, an enclosure forthe sensitized material, a stage or easel on which thematerial to be copied may be placed, and an illumina-tion system. Some optical copiers are equipped withfocusing systems which provide for some degree ofcontrol of the size of the copy. Others are of the"fixed focus" type, usually set at a 1:1 size ratio.

The presence of a lens in a copying device alters


the process of copying in many significant ways. Inthe first place, the problem of contact, which is abso-lutely essential and often difficult to achieve in contactreflex copying, is eliminated. In its place is intro-duced another factor known as "depth of field."

To explain the idea of depth of field in the sim-plest possible terms, let us say that the lens of acopying device is focused on a plane surface on whicha document has been placed. If an exposure is thenmade, the resulting copy will be clear and sharp.Now, if we were to raise the document off the planesurface by, say, 1/8 inch (i.e., move it closer to thelens), or, lower it the same distance (move it furtheraway from the lens), the copy may still be acceptablysharp. However, if we were to raise or lower it by,say, one inch, the resulting copies might then beextremely out of focus and illegible.

Depth of field is a highly relative thing whichdepends on the focal length of the lens, the relativeaperture of the lens, and other factors. It is not nec-essary to go into an explanation of what all these fac-tors mean. Suffice it to say, in a copying device witha lens of a given aperture and effective focal length,a subject can be nearer or farther away from theplane of focus within certain li knits before the imageis sufficiently out of focus to be illegible. But eventhis plus or minus distance, in terms of the legibilityof a copy, is not an absolute. The outlines of large,bold type may be quite fuzzy and unclear without de-stroying the legibility of the text; but only a slightdegree of fuzziness of outline will make a text in asmall type face illegible. Effective depth of field is,therefore, relative to the size, line width, and othercharacteristics of the text being copied.

In book copying with optical copying devices,depth of field is of considerable importance because,in the copying of tightly bound volumes, the innermargins tend to curve away from the plane of focus.What becomes all important, then, is how far awayfrom the plane of focus the inner margin can recedebefore the text at the inner margin is no longer legible.With an optical copier, such as the Xerox 914, the op-erator is obliged to coerce the tightly bound volumeinto a position within which the useful depth of fieldof the lens will be able to record the text in a legibleform. How much force is necessary will depend onthe tightness of the binding, the extent of the innermargin, and the size of the type face in the innermargin area which must be reproduced. An opticalcopying method, while thus freeing the operator fromthe sheer physical effort of flattening the entire sur-face of the original into contact with the sensitizedmaterial, imposes, in its own ways, other limitationsand other requirements.

"Coverage" in an optical copier simply meansthat all of the subject to be copied is in full view ofthe lens. The book angle with an optical copier isalways on the order of 180 degrees, but depth of fieldallows for the copying of many subjects which, in thesame physical position, could not be copied by contactmethods. "Fixed coverage loss" in contact reflex

copying is here translated into depth of field. If theinner margin area of a tightly bound volume cannotbe coerced into a position which is within the depthof field of the particular lens system employed, a"coverage" loss will ensue. Exposure timing withmost optical copiers is more easily manageable bythe nature of the processes employed. Exposurelatitude is usually much greater. With the Xero-graphic system used in the 914 copier, exposure isfixed; no guesswork is necessary.

Optical copiers, by the nature of the method, aremore complex than contact copiers and must meetmuch higher standards of design and construction.These factors, together with a lens of a long focallength which, in itself, is quite an expensive item,make the price of optical copiers much greater thancontact copiers. With optical copiers, however,there are no problems of contact and coverage; therate of production is often faster, and, with somemachines, the operation is automated to a high de-gree. Exposures are easier to control and exposurelatitude is greater, which reduces waste. With someoptical copiers, an enlarged or reduced-size copy ofthe original can be made. Unit costs per copy maybe equal to or even lower than the cost of copies madeby contact reflex methods. These many advantages,however, can only be acquired at the cost of a largecapital investment or a high monthly rental. Also,such machines cannot be operated economically un-less a fairly large volume of copying is being done.

Certainly one of the most talked-about opticalbook copiers currently on the market is the Xerox914. At an annual rental of $1,140, it is a costly ma-chine, which must produce a great many copies if unitcosts are to be held down. For example, if only 100copies are made per month, the labor and materialscosts per copy will be 97 cents. At 500 copies permonth, this cost is down to 21 cents, and at 1,000copies, 111- cents per copy.

Faced with the need for a book copier, thelibrarian-consumer thus finds himself in the positionof having to choose between (a) low-efficiency contactreflex copiers coupled with low initial costs and (b)high-efficiency optical copiers acquired at a high cost.He might well wish for something between these twoextremes, and this is precisely what is needed. Sucha machine would either be a contact reflext copier ofa design which would be far more efficient than pres-ent equipment, or an optical copier substantially lowerin cost than the Xerox 914 machine. In contact reflexcopying, the nature of the method itself is such that100 percent efficiency cannot be achieved. There willalways be a certain percentage of pages in bound vol-umes, which, because of their particular physicalcharacteristics, cannot be copied by contact methods.Such pages usually can be copied by optical methods.On the other hand, the introduction of a lens systemlarge enough for the copying of 82 by 11-inch docu-ments at a 1:1 ratio is, by itself, costly. Contactreflex copying is a manual process and therefore isnot as rapid and simple as optical copying can be.

But, as shown in the example of the Xerox 914 ma-chine, the cost of automation can be very high.

A compromise solution is therefore indicated,and can be approached in two ways. The first wouldbe in developmental work on an optical copier em-ploying a process other than Xerography. The verynature of the Xerographic process is such that highengineering and manufacturing costs are unavoidable.Verifax, DTR, stabilization, and Electrofax materialspossessing sufficient speed for use in an opticalcopier are already available. Optical copiers em-ploying these materials exist but, for the most part,they were designed for purposes other than bookcopying and are large, complex, and costly.

A second approach would be in the improvementof the design and construction of contact reflex copiersand in this area, as the machine analyses have shown,there is considerable room for improvement.

Since the conclusion of the first phase of the bookcopier testing program and the publication -f the re-port (Photocopying from Bound Volumes, by WilliamR. Hawken, Chicago: American Library Association,1962 ), no contact reflex book copiers significantlybetter than those tested have appeared on the market.One, however, is sufficiently different from all othersthat it is worth mentioning. This is a unit called theThermofax Companion Unit Model 48, and it is on dis-play here. This unit will attract attention on twocounts. In the first place, the process is completelydry: the processing of the exposed sheet is accom-plished by running it through an office-type Thermo-fax copier. Secondly, the sensitized material usedis not limited in its response to colors, or inks ofcertain kinds. It thus extends the utility of anyThermofax copier.

To make a copy, a sheet of film is placed incontact with the original and exposed. The exposedfilm is then placed in contact with a sheet of whitecopy paper and covered with a sheet of black maskingmaterial. This sandwich is then placed in the silk-screen carrier used in Thermofax copying and passedthrough a Thermofax machine. The film and the mask-ing sheet are then removed and the copy is cnished.A copy can be made in about a minute. The e, st ofmaterials per copy is 7.7 cents. Since, up to now,I have not been able to ascertain any details aboutthe chemistry or physics of the process employed,I have no idea as to the stability or permanence ofthe copies.

In the report, Photocopying from Bound Volumes,a short chapter entitled "Notes on the StabilizationProcess" was included, but at that time there wereno book copiers using this process. Since that time,new developments in the use of the stabilizationprocess have reached a point where this process isnow of considerable importance in the entire photo-copy field. It is being used in office copying machines;it is being used in three of the reader-printers cur-rently being tested, and is also used in two newoptical book copiers.

Because of the growing importance of the


stabilization process, I want to take a few minutes atthis point to make clear what stabilization means andhow the process works.

The fundamental difference between conventionalprocessing and stabilization processing lies in thedifferent chemical treatment of the exposed and de-veloped silver halide image.

To form a permanent or even a semi-permanentimage by conventional processing techniques, thesilver halides which were not used in the formationof the developed image, and which, if allowed to re-main in the print, will rapidly turn dark on exposureto light, are dissolved out of the paper by means of a"fixing bath"the well-known hypo. Following thisfixation step, the hypo, now laden with silver com-pounds, must be removed from the paper by pro-longed washing.

In the stabilization process, the unused silverhalides are not removed from the print. Instead,they are chemically converted into substances whichare relatively inert and which are not readily af-fected by the subsequent action of light, heat, or at-mospheric conditions. Thus the classical four-bathmethoddevelopment, rinsing, fixation and washingwhich might take upwards of an hour, is reduced totwo steps: development and stabilization, which canbe accomplished in seconds. Also, the photographicdarkroom, with sinks, plumbing, trays, and otherparaphernalia has been replaced by a small, simple,relatively inexpensive machine which can be operatedin the light.

As an example of the speed which the stabilizationis capable of, the leading edge of an exposed print fedinto a Polymicro stabilization processor emerges just5 seconds after entry, and an entire 82 by 11-inchprint is out in 13 seconds. As the prints leave thestabilization bath, they are pressed between two roll-ers which remove most of the moisture. On exposureto air, the prints will become dry in a few minutes'time.

Stabilized copies, by the nature of the process,are of doubtful permanence. Depending upon the con-ditions of light, heat, and humidity under which theyare stored, they will keep for a period of months orfor many years without appreciable change in theirappearance, but they cannot be considered to possesswhat is usually called "archival" permanence.

To go on now to the two optical copiers employingstabilization processes: the first of these is calledthe "Arcor" and is an import from France. The sec-ond is called the "Docustat," and is manufactured byDocumat, Incorporated, of Waltham, Massachusetts.Both of these machines are on display here.

To make a copy with the Arcor, the document tobe copied is placed on the exposure surface, a buttonis pressed, and the exposed sheet of paper, which iscut from a roll, is advanced through a stabilizationprocessor and out of the machine.

There is nothing to be gained by my giving you adetailed verbal description of the workings of the


Arcor since you can see it in operation in theexhibit area.

Instead, I want to draw some comparisons be-tween the Arcor and its product and the Xerox 914machine and its product. The availability of theArcor on a rental basis was first brought to myattention by Mr. William G. Harkins, AssociateDirector of the University of Florida Libraries.His interest in the Arcor stemmed from the factthat he was unable to obtain a Xerox 914 machinebecause the Xerox Corporation would not make oneavailable until enough units were on order in a givenarea to justify the establishment of a local serviceoffice for the maintenance of the machines. Thisundoubtedly makes economic sense from the pointof view of the Xerox Corporation but certainly worksa hardship on the Library in question. Here is a li-brary with a real need for such a copier- -whose vol-ume of copying is great enough to justify the relativelyhigh cost of a 914 machinebut is unable to obtain one.

The company distributing the Arcor in the Gaines-ville area quoted Mr. Harkins a rental of $90 permonth. In San Francisco, the company handling theArcor quotes a rental of $125 per month for sixmonths and $100 per month if the rental period isone year. A thirty-six month lease-purchase planis also available at $83.84 per month. Since the $90rental quoted to Mr. Harkins and the $100 figurequoted to me bracket the $95 per month rental costof a 914 machine, let us assume that the rental costsof the two machines are the same. It is immediatelyevident that the volume of copying done each monthwill have to be very large indeed to keep the overheadcost per copy at a reasonable level. At a volume of1,000 copies per month, the rental cost alone will be92 cents per copy, and at 2,000 copies per month,44 per copy. The labor cost of copying with

4either machine should be about the same; the biggestdifference between the costs of Arcor and Xerox cop-ies is in the materials costs.

The materials costs of Xerox copies are approxi-mately one cent; but for Arcor copies, they are ap-proximately six cents. Therefore, at a monthly vol-ume of 2,000 copies, the labor, materials, and rentalcosts of Xerox copies made on the 914 machine willbe approximately 64 cents, whereas Arcor copieswill cost approximately 114 centsalmost 75 per-cent higher than Xerox copies. The one importantdifference affecting this cost picture is that the Arcorcan be purchased outright; the cost can be amortizedat a monthly rate lower than the rental and overheadeventually reduced to nothing more than service andmaintenance. For the present, at least, the rentalcost of the Xerox 914 machine continues indefinitelyat the rate of $95 per month.

In comparing the processes and products of thetwo machines, it should be noted that the stabilizationprocess used in the Arcor is a wet process. Copiesemerge from the machine in a stare which, in thecurious jargon of the trade, is called "damp-dry."

Ili

The Xerographic process, on the other hand, is com-pletely dry. Arcor copies are negative. Xerox cop-ies are positive. If a positive copy is needed fromthe Arcor, a negative copy must first be made andthen recopied, which doubles the cost. Arcor copiesare on a paper stock which is coated on one side witha gelatin emulsioi: and which, depending on the condi-tions under which they are stored, may curl. Xeroxcopies are on a plain, uncoated stock. The perma-nence of stabilized copies is highly open to question,whereas Xerox copies are as permanent as the paperon which they are printed. Arcor copies measure82 by 12 inches and must be trimmed before they canbe filed. Xerox copies are 82 by 11 inches and needno trimming. The sharpness of copies produced oneither machine is satisfactory and approximatelyequal. While regulation of the exposure is requiredin some cases with the Arcor, and not with the Xerox914 machine, the exposure latitude of the paper usedin the Arcor is great enough to overcome the wasteusually associated with the problem of trial-and-error exposure determination.

The Docustat is, in general, quite similar to theArcor in its operation, since both are optical, stabili-zation-process copiers. The product of the Docustatis quite similar to that of the Arcor, except that it istit by 11 instead of 82 by 12 inches. The Docustat,however, has two size settingsone for letter-sizeoriginals, which are reproduced at approximately85 percent of life size, and another for 8.1 by 14-inchlegal-size documents, which are reproduced at abouttwo-thirds of original size. The major difference be-tween the Arcor and the Docustat is this: The Docu-stat is not a copying machine which you can purchaseor rent and then use in your library for making cop-ies, as you would with an Arcor or a Xerox 914 ma-chine. It is a coin-in-the-slot vending machine forself-service copying by the public. Each copy costs25 cents. It is installed and serviced by an agent whocollects the profit from this operation and pays thelibrary a percentage of the gross receipts of the ma-chine in return for the privilege of having it installedin some advantageous location in the library wherelibrary patrons will have access to it. According toMr. J. H. Smith, Vice-President of Documat, Inc.,Docustats have been installed thus far at the HarvardMedical School Library, the Harvard Business SchoolLibrary, Brooklyn College Library, Brooklyn PublicLibrary, and Manhattan College Library.

The Docustat introduces a new factor into theeconomics of book copying. As has been pointed out,the unit cost of copies produced on either the Arcoror the Xerox 914 machine can be well below 25 centseach, but only if the volume of copying is quite large.While, on the other hand, the materials cost for con-

tact reflex copies is well below 25 cents, the relativeinefficiency of the method is such that trial-and-errorprocedures, remakes, waste, labor costs, and machinemaintenance can easily run the cost per copy up to the25-cent figure. Also, contact reflex copying frombound volumes is by no means a do-it-yourself opera-tion for the uninitiated. The Docustat, therefore, de-spite the limitations of the stabilization process andof size, might prove to be very useful in smaller li-braries that do not have a copying volume great enoughto justify either an Arcor or a Xerox 914, especiallyin view of the fact that the installation of a Docustatdoes not require any capital outlay on the part of thelibrary, and supplies and maintenance are the respon-sibility of the agent who installs the machine. Fur-thermore, since the library receives a percentage ofthe gross income of the machine, copies made by thelibrary for its own use would cost less than 25 cents.

To conclude this resume of the present state ofbook copying equipment: now that electrostatic copieswhich emp'oy the Electrofax process are beginning toappear, it is to be hoped that a book copier employingthis process will soon appear. The advantages of theElectrofax process are the following: The copies arecompletely dry and are permanent. The copies arepositive. The materials costs, although higher thanthe cost of plain paper as used in the Xerox 914 ma-chine, are well below the costs of Verifax, Thermofax,diffusion-transfer, or stabilization-process materials.Reproductions of continuous-tone subjects are superiorto those obtained with the Xerox 914 machine. Themachines are less complex than Xerographic copiersand should be cheaper to purchase or rent.

MR. POOLE: I know we all appreciate Mr.Hawken's clear and very practical appraisal of cur-rent equipment for copying from bound volumes andparticularly his review of these machines which havecome on the market within the last few months. We'vealready had some commercial plugs from this plat-form, so it may not be amiss for me to put in a plugfor Mr. Hawken's latest book, which is already goinginto its second printing. We have been selling copiesout of the ALA warehouse like hotcakes in the last sixmonths and I would like to point out that, for those ofyou who already have copying equipment, copiers,which, perhaps, are not the most efficient currentlyavailable, Mr. Hawken's book contains some very in-structive chapters on how to operate each of the com-mon types of book copying equipment. These instruc-tions to your operator, if they don't help to makeevery copy perfect, will at least help them to get themost efficient operation from their machines. If youhave not seen this volume, it would be well worthyour looking at; we'll have copies available at theLTP booth beginning tomorrow afternoon.


1.

6

Equipment and Methods in the Production ofFull-Size Copy from Microtext

WILLIAM R. HAWKEN: Librarians have had a long-standing and, now, a continually increasing need forequipment for making copies of materials in theircollections. For bound volumes, a good book copyingdevice has long been needed but, today, bound volumecopying is only one aspect of the problem. A secondand, in many ways, more difficult problem arisesfrom the fact that vast quantities of library materialsare availableand in many cases only availableinmicroform. The problem is still further complicatedby the fact that there are many sizes and types ofmicroforms, some of which are transparent, some ofwhich are opaque, some of which come in rolls of dif-ferent widths and lengths, and some of which are inflat sheets of a number of sizes. Reading equipmentalone for microforms is expensive, and few individ-uals can afford to purchase their own. Moreover, aslibrary collections of microforms grow, the librariesthemselves must budget more and more money forreading equipmentmoney which, I hardly need to re-mind you, is seldom easily come by. Again, the situa-tion is worsened by the fact that a reader for micro-transparencies wl&.th may cost several hundred dollarscannot be used to read micro-opaques, and vice-versa.

Since the use of library materials which are inmicroform cannot be accomplished without some sortof reading device which, in most cases, imposes onthe user the hampering restriction of "Library UseOnly," it would be highly desirable if there were someefficient and relatively inexpensive means wherebythe enlarged, projected image of a microform couldbe quickly reproduced on a piece of paper.

In the past few years, a number of reader-printers for microforms have appeared on the marketand, naturally, have attracted a gcmg! deal of attentionon the part of librarians. This is the real ;1b why youare here today, why the equipment exhibits are here,and why I have been asked to come to talk to youabout reader-printers. And this is why the LibraryTechnology Project of the American Library Associa-tion has engaged me to make a study of reader-printersa study which will be completed by the endof August and out of which a detailed report will bepublished and made available through the AmericanLibrary Association in Chicago.

I would like to first define the limits of the cur-

50 Production of Full-Size Copy from Microtext

rent study of reader-printers. There are upwards oftwo dozen reader-printers currently on the market.The present study is limited to eight. Why this limi-tation? Simply because most of the machines availa-ble are not suitable for making prints from the kindsand sizes of microforms held by libraries. A numberof reader-printers on the market are designed for themaking of large prints from microfilms of engineeringdrawings mounted in electric accounting machinecards. Others are limited to 16 mm. or 70 mm. orother sizes of microfilm not usually found in libraries.

The machines currently being tested are theFilmac 100 and the Filmac 200-R, which are productsof the Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing Companyand are distributed through Thermofax sales offices;the Documat Mark I and Mark II, manufactured byDocumat, Incorporated. A machine known as theRecordak Reader-Printer is nothing more than aDocumat Reader-Printer with the Recordak nameplate on it; an identical unit is also marketed byRemington Rand under the name of the RemingtonRand Reader-Printer Model F-468. Others are theAndrews Paper and Chemical Company's "Rollacopy";an identical machine is distributed by the PhotorapidCorporation of America under the trade-name of"Micromate"; The Ross Microreader made by Ross,Limited in England; and the Universel, which ismanufactured in France by 0. L. Beauvais. Testswere also made on the Recordak MPE reader, withand without an accessory unit called the FairfaxPlaten Elevator, which I will describe later. Notesting has been done on the new Filmac 300. Withmachines such as the Rollacopy and Micromate,which come in two sizesone for letter- or legal-size reproductions, and another capable of makingvery large prints of engineering drawingsthe letter-size model was the one selected for testing.

Reader-printers function in accordance with cer-tain optical and photographic principles which arerelatively simple, well-known, and widely used inordinary photographic practice. Light must fall ona microform image and either pass through it or bereflected from it through a lens which will magnifythe image to readable size. The lens must be capableof being focused to bring the magnified image to maxi-mum clarity and this image must fall on a plane

surface where a sheet of suitable light-sensitive ma-terial can be placed. Following the exposure of thesensitized material, the latent image thus formedmust be developed by means of some chemical orphysical process. At the same time, this developedimage must be rendered at least reasonably stableso that it will not be unduly affected by light, heat,or atmospheric conditions.

All of the commonly used methods for producinga photographic enlargementmethods which havebeen widely used for nearly a centurymeet all ofthese conditions. Why, then, one might well ask, hasthe development of a good reader-printer for micro-forms been so difficult? The answer to this lies inthree further problems imposed by the practical useof microforms. The first of these is the requirementthat the enlarged print be produced under conditionsof ordinary room light, such as one would expect tofind in a library or an office, instead of in a dark-room. Second, the print must be produced very rap-idly. Ideally it should be produced virtually instvAta-neously. Long print-processing times, such as arecommon in ordinary photographic work, are much toolong for practicability in a readerprinter. Third,the print, however it is produced, must be dry, or atleast sufficiently low in moisture content to be usedimmediately, or within a few moments. The longdrying times common to ordinary photographic meth-ods of print production also are not practicable. Inrecent years, a number of reader-printers have ap-peared, each of which offers a solution, or a partialsolution to these problems.

The best solution to the problem of using areader-printer in a brightly lit space is to enclosethe sensitized material within the body of the machinein such a way that light from the illumination systemof the reader will fall on the sensitized material whena print is to be made, but ambient lightthe light inthe surrounding areawill not. The four reader-printers in the Filmac lineModels 100, 2J0, 200R,and 300and the two Documat reader-printer modelsthe Mark I and Mark IIare reader-printers of thistype, which we shall call "internal projection" reader-printers. The Ross Microreader may also be consid-ered an internal projection reader-printer, but sincethe sensitized material is not contained within thebody of this device, it fails to qualify for full-fledgedmembership in this class.

All of the remaining reader-printers testedtheRolla-copy, Micromate, and the Universelare "ex-ternal projection" reader-printers. The sensitizedmaterial is outside of the device. Light from the pro-jection lamp passes through the lens and falls on thesurface of the sensitized material. At the same time,the light in the room where the reader-printer isbeing used also falls on the surface of the sensitizedmaterial. This poses an interesting balancing prob-lem. The light-sensitive material will have to be ina face-up position for whatever exposure interval willbe required to produce a latent image. This exposureinterval, however, will have to be below the threshold

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at which ambient light will begin to cause the paper tofog and darken. Since the exposure interval will bedictated by the density of the negative, the relativeaperture of the lens, and the intensity of the projec-tion lamp, avoidance of over-all fog can only be ac-complished by reducing the brightness of the sur-rounding illumination to a safe level. Just how muchthe illumination will have to be reducedthat is, hownear to a condition of relative darkness must prevailin the work areawill vary with the type of sensitizedmaterial being used, and the brightness of the image.

The solution to the problem of rapidly producinga print, which is almost dry, has been brought by thedevelopment of new processes. The first of these toconsider is the electrolytic process employed in theFilmac line of reader-printers. The sensitized mate-rial consists of three layers: a paper base, a thinlayer of a metal foil such as aluminum, and, on topof this, a coating of zinc oxide in a resin binder.This zinc oxide coating provides a photoconductivelayer which, in the dark, acts as an insulatorthatis, it has high electrical resistance. However, theaction of light during exposure lowers the resistancein those areas where light strikes the surface. Thus,a latent image is formed in terms of differences inelectrical resistance, the image areas having nowbecome electrically conductive through the action oflight. If the exposed sheet is then placed in contactvery briefly with a suitable electroplating solutionand D. C. electric potential applied, current can flowbetween the solution and the aluminum foil layer.This causes metal ions in the solution to deposit or"plate out" on the zinc oxide surface in the imageareas to form a visible metallic image. This proc-essing step, in which electrolytic formation of theimage occurs, is accomplished with great simplicity,requiring, as it does, nothing more than drawing thezinc oxide surface over an ordinary cellulose spongesoaked with the solution. The processing of an 82 by11 inch print requires no more than about 42 secondsand, since the surface of the prink is only barelymoistened during processing, the print can be consid-ered, for all practical purposes, as dry. Another veryimportant feature of the electrolytic process is that itpossesses remarkable exposure latitude. With mostmicrofilms, satisfactory prints can be made over awide range of settings. While the prints will varyfrom light to dark, clarity of the image is not seri-ously impaired. Also, on the basis of what is publiclyknown about the chemistry of the process used inFilmac reader-printers, the prints should have ahigh degree of stability.

A second process, which also provides a rapidlyproduced print which is nearly dry, is the stabiliza-tion process (which was described in the talk onbook copiers).

The Documat Mark I employs a variant form ofstabilization known as a "Monobath." A Monobath isa single solution which contains both the developingand stabilizing agents. Since the processing time withthis Monobath is slower than when a two-solution

Production of Full-Size Copy from Microtext 51

process is used, the manufacturer brought out theDocumat Mark II, which is identical in all respects tothe Mark I, except that the processing section hasbeen changed to operate with the two-solution process.

While there are three reader-printers on themarket which use electrostatic processes to producea finished, dry enlargement in a very short space oftime, none of these could be considered as likelyequipment for library use. All were designed for thereproduction of engineering drawings.

To sum up thus far: we have two types of reader-printersthe internal projection type and the externalprojection type. We have two processesthe electro-lytic process and the stabilization process. We shallgo on now with analyses and comparisons betweenthese types of machines and processes, starting withmagnification control.

With a single exceptionthe Filmac 300all ofthe internal projection reader-printers work at eithera fixed magnification or achieve varying degrees ofmagnification by the use of different lenses. TheFilmac 100 can be obtained with five lenses whichprovide magnification ratios of 7, 9, 13, 19, and 26diameters. The Filmac 200 and 200R employ a singlemagnification of 15 diameters. Five lenses are avail-able for the Documat which provide magnifications of10.5, 13.4, 20.1, 27.9, and 33.8 diameters. The RossMicroreader has two lenses and an extension deviceto provide magnifications of 10, 15, and 18 diameters.For special purposes, 27 and 37 diameter lenses canbe obtained. Controlling the magnification ratio bymeans of additional lenses is disadvantageous in oneimmediate respectcost. Additional lenses for theFilmac 100 cost $66.50 each and additional lenses forthe Documat cost $84. A far more serious drawbackarises from the fact that, if the reduction ratio usedin filming does not correlate fairly closely with oneof the available magnification ratios, the image willeither be larger or smaller than the original. If themagnification is such as to produce an image on thereader screen which is smaller than the original, itstill may be readable and printable. But, if the mag-nification is higher than the reduction ratio used infilming, only a portion of the image will appear onthe reader screen. Now, if such an overmagnifiedimage is simply to be read, this can be done by shift-ing the image back and forth or up and down on thereader screen. But, if the image is to be printed,only the portion showing on the reader screen willshow on the print and two or more prints will benecessary to reproduce the full text.

External projection reader-printers, such as theRollacopy and Micromate, are quite similar in designto ordinary photographic enlarging devices, consistingas they do of a projection unit mounted on a verticalcolumn which projects the image downward on thebase board of the unit. The upper limit of magnifica-tion is determined by the height of the column. Inter-mediate magnifications of any degree are obtainedsimply by changing the height of the projection uniton the column.


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The Universel reader-printer follows a generaldesign scheme for microfilm readers which is fairlypopular in Europe. The image is projected upwardto a slanting mirror which reflects the image down-ward to the table top on which the reader is locatedor, if a print is to be made, to an easel which holdsthe light-sensitive material. The mirror is sup-ported on two arms which can be extended to increasethe degree of magnification. In the Universel, thesearms have three V-notches cut into their lower edgewhich provide three degrees of magnification-7, 9,and 10 diameters.

The second aspect of reader-printers to consideris exposure control. Given a microfilm of a certaindensity, how does one determine what exposure to usein making a print? As with most office copying ma-chines and book copiers, exposure determination isa "by guess and by golly" situation. Exposures, how-ever, are not nearly so critical with reader-printersas they are with book copiers, for two reasons. Inthe first place, the electrolytic process employed inthe Filmac line of reader-printers possesses, as Imentioned, great exposure latitude. In the secondplace, stabilization materials are lower in contrastand also have much greater exposure latitude thandiffusion transfer materials, for example. In thehands of an inexperienced user, some trial-and-errorand waste of stabilization materials will occur. Afactor which contributes to uncertainty about what thecorrect exposure should be when using external pro-jection type machines is that, for any given film, thehigher the projection unit is raised on the column, thelonger the exposure is going to be. With Filmac units,waste from incorrect exposure will seldom occur.

A third aspect is that of operating costs. Mate-rials costs for producing 8-21 by 11-inch prints by theelectrolytic process on Filmac units are approxi-mately 9 cents per print. The cost of stabilizationprocess prints in the 8 by 11-inch size will varywith the brand of materials and can range from 6i to7; cents per print. Prints produced on the DocumatMark I by the Monobath process cost approximately8 cents each. Two factors which affect over-alloperating costs are waste, which will vary from situa-tion to situation, and frequency of use. With any proc-ess, the chemical costs per print are very small ifthe machine is in fairly steady use. For example,with the electrolytic process, approximately 600prints can be processed in one pint of activator(which costs $1.25) if the prints are made in a con-tinuous run. Average chemical life expectancy andcosts based on customers' orders handled by oneThermofax sales office show a ratio of one pint ofactivator for every 300 prints, but this is still achemical cost of less than 3 of one cent per print.

It takes four ounces, or 31 cents worth of acti-vator, to ready the Filmac 100 for printing. If only30 prints are made, the chemical costs would bemore than three times as great but would still beapproximately one cent per print, which is not ex-cessive. A similar situation prevails with various

stabilization process materials but, since a greaterquantity of solution is needed in the .machine trays,chemical costs due to evaporation losses during pe-riods when the machine is idle can be consideraolyhigher. If a stabilization process machine is usedinfrequently, the solutions should be siphoned outand kept in closed containers.

Now, having established a general framework ofinformation about the reader-printers currently beingtested, I wish to go on to a more detailed considera-tion of the individual machines, starting with ma-chines of the internal projection type.

The Documat Mark I is a reader-printer whichwill accept either 16 mm. or 35 mm. microfilm andwhich can also be used to make prints from micro-fiche. The viewing screen is 11 by 11 inches in size,but only a 7- by 94 inch area of the screen image canbe reproduced on a print. Lines showing the areathat can be reproduced are scribed on the glass. Toposition the image to be printed in this area, the pro-jected image can be moved back and forth and fromside to side. The head can also be rotated 360 de-grees. Once the image has been positioned, a printis made simply by pushing a button. Various mechani-cal events then occur within the reader which need notbe described in detail. With the Documat Mark I,which employs a Monobath, the finished print is deliv-ered from the machine in 45 seconds. With the MarkII, which uses a two-solution process, the finishedprint is delivered in 25 seconds.

Assuming reasonably good quality in the micro-film being reproduced, the printed image is a fairlywell-defined black image against a white background.Although the image size is only 7 by 94 inches, thesheet on which it is printed is of the standard 82 - by11-inch size.

Sensitized paper is loaded into a compartment atthe rear of the machine in rolls which are 82 incheswide and 150 feet long, thus providing enough paperfor approximately 160 prints before reloading becomesnecessary. Trays for the solutions are located at thefront of the machine where they are easily accessiblefor filling, replenishment, removal, and cleaning. Fo-cusing is accomplished by rotating a knurled knob atthe top of the unit. When using lenses of differentmagnifications, evenness of illumination can be main-tained by rotating a mob located at the top of the lamphouse which adjusts the position of a condenser lens.The unit is well constructed and finished.

The principal drawbacks encountered in the useof the Documat are as follows:

Probably the greatest problem librarians willencounter is that of incompatability between the re-duction ratio employed in filming a given original andthe magnification ratios of the various lenses suppliedwith the Documat. If material is to be filmed andlater reproduced on a Documat reader-printerandthis is known in advancea suitable reduction ratiocan be used which will permit the material to be re-produced at maximum sizeone print per page.However, library collections of microforms are

generally heterogenous collections of a great varietyof materials collected ever a period of years from anumber of sources. Reduction ratios may rant B from7 or 8 diameters to well over 20. Smaller-size li-brary materials may have been filmed at reductionratios which are below the minimum magnificationof the Documat reader-printer, which is 10i diam-eters. In such cases, it may happen that a singlepage cannot be reproduced on a single print.

A second problem has to do with film area andmargins. The 7- by 94 -inch area on by 11-inchpaper suggests one kind of original in particularatypewritten page and, more generally, office recordsof business, industry, and government. Such recordsexist in uncountable billions, and it is here that oneof the largest markets for microfilm equipment andsupplies is found.

Also, such records are usually filmed at highreduction ratios, and the magnification ratios of thelenses available for use in the Documat were selectedto correspond to the reduction ratios most commonlyused in the filming of such records, so that one docu-ment could be reproduced on one print. In a greatmany 8i- by 11-inch typewritten of iginals, the mar-gins are ample and, in cases where they are not andthe document must be reduced in size to the 7- by 94-inch print area, the size of the usual pica and elitetype faces is large enough to withstand this reductionin size without loss of legibility. Such conditions areby no means always the case with library materialswhere very small type faces and small margins area commonplace.

A common format employed in microfilming 1:brary materials is the full frame of 35 mm. non-perforated film, which measures 14 by 14 inches.Maps, graphs, folding plates, manuscript materials,and newspapers are frequently filmed on this fullframe. Full-frame negatives, with a single exception,can be reproduced on the Documat, but only in sec-tions. With the 10.5 diameter lens, four prints willbe required; with the 13.4 diameter lens, eight prints;and, with the 20.1 lens, no less than 15 prints will berequired. This ,L'Akes printing costly and pages inmany pieces are nardly convenient to read.

The one exception mentioned arises from whatappears to be a design fault in the Documat reader-printer. It was observed that, when the 20.1 diameterlens is used, a part of one edge of a full frame couldnot be brought into view on the reader screen, becausethe scanning device, which permits the film to bemoved for edge-to-edge scanning, simply does not gofar enough in one direction. The inner edge of thefilm being viewed can be brought into position forprinting but the outer edge cannot. The loss rangesfrom 2 inch of original size on materials recorded at8:1 reduction ratio to approximately 14 inches at a20:1 reduction ratio. If, for example, one wished tomake a print of an article in a newspaper filmed at a20:1 reduction ratio, it might well be impossible toposition a portion of the article for printing. This issimply one more instance in which the design of a


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reader-printer or, let us say, the purpose for whichit was designed, makes it unsuitable for certaincommon types of library microforms.

Another fault found in the Documat reader-printer was in the mounting of the glass flats whichhold the film in position. These flats are mountedvery close together; so much so, in fact, that inthreading the machine, tension from the pressure ofthe flats was obsenable. While such close spacingensures that the film will be held flat, it can alsocause scratching of the emulsion surface if there isany dust or dirt on the film. Since the operation ofthe machine cannot be conducted in a vacuum, itwould be preferable if the flats could be separatedwhen the film is to be advanced.

The list price of the Documat Mark I is $850.With two additional lenses the total price comes to$1,018. The unit, with one lens, can be rented fromthe Recordak Corporation for $35 per month on aminimum rental of six months. Parts for replacingthe Monobath processing section of the Mark I withthe stabilization process section of the Mark IIcost $50.

The first genuine reader-printer to appear ontIae market was the machine now called the Filmac100 which was introduced in 1957. Whereas the Docu-mat has its film carrier, lamp house, ana lens at thetop of the unit and projects an image downward to thesurface of the sensitized material, the Filmac 100has its lamp house in the base of the unit and projectsan image upward to the sensitized material which isloaded into the top of the unit in rolls which are 8iinches wide and 298 feet long. The paper on whichthe print is made measures 8i by 11 inches, but thesize of the screen, which determines the size of theimage, is only 7 by 81 inches. Here again, the evi-dence points to the conclusion that the machine wasdesigned for the reproduction of 8k- by 11-inchoffice records.

The machine will accept 16 mm. and 35 mm.microfilms. It can also be used to print from micro-fiche. To position an image for printing, the film canbe moved back and forth and from side to side, andthe head can be revolved a full 360 degrees. To makea print, the print button is pressed. In a few seconds'time, depending on the exposure setting chosen, theprinted section of paper is advanced out of the ma-chine where it can be torn off. There is a smallamount of surface moisture on the coated side of theprint which dries very quickly on exposure to air.The image is not black. It is grayish in tone, but isquite sharp and clear and easily legible.

The activator tray, which is conveniently locatedat the front of the machine, consists of a small plastictrough containing a cellulose sponge. Approximatelyfour ounces of the activator solution are poured intothis trayenough to wet the sponge with a little ex-cess. More activator must be added from time totime as the solution level goes down through use orevaporation. The tray is easily removed for clean-ing, with little danger of spilling. This is well be-


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cause, according to the Filmac representative whohas supplied me with machines and materials, theactivator will stain. He has occasionally spilled iton a white shirt and, in his own words, he has foundnothing that will remove the stain.

The machine is simplicity itself to operate andlends itself readily to a self-service type of operation.In furtherance of this idea, one office machines com-panythe firm of Bodine, Bryson and Rolling, Inc.,of Dirminghalq, Alabamahas equipped a Filmac 100with a coin-in-the-slot attachment which operates ontwenty-five cent pieces. This machine is in use on aself-service basis by patrons of the public library inAnniston, Alabama. For the benefit of others whomay be interested, the company is prepared to furnishall necessary parts for this modification for $75 dol-lars, or can arrange for complete installation throughany local Thermofax Sales Office for a total cost of$105.00.

While the Filmac 100 functions very well indeedin terms of simplicity and economy, in terms of ver-satility, it leaves a great deal to be desired. Sincethe screen size is small and the magnifications arefixed, it is decidedly limited in its ability to handlethe variety of microforms found in library collections.For example, the text of a sample page from Ameri-can Documentation measures 91 inches in height. But,the height of the reader screen is only 84 inches. Thismeans that, if the reduction ratio used in filming anarticle from American Documentation is compatiblewith the magnification of one of the Filmac lenses,the page can be reproduced on a single print only if itis reduced somewhat in size, which may make readinga bit difficult. To print the text at full size would re-quire two prints, and this would not only make readingless convenient but would double the cost.

Also, if documents are filmed on the full 35 mm.non-perforate frame, sectional printing is unavoidable.Using magnifications of 7 or 9 diameters, four printswill be required to reproduce the contents of a singleframe. With the 13 diameter lens, 8 prints will haveto be made and, with the 19 diameter lens, 15 prints.

Groups of prints stored in file folders exhibit adecided tendency to curl. This is generally true ofmost photographic papers which have a coating on oneside only, but on prints made on the Filmac reader-printer, this is accentuated by the weight of the metalfoil and zinc oxide coatings on the microfilm copypaper used in the Filmac 100. Seventy sheets of thiscopy paper weigh a pc'ind, while 70 sheets of 2)-poundbond paper weigh 11 ounces and 70 sheets of sulfitecanary bond, such as is commonly used for carboncopies, weigh but nine ounces. The copy paper usedin the Filmac 100, therefore, weighs from half againto almost twice as much as the papers ordinarilyused for office records.

Thus, like the Documat, the Filmac 100 workswell enough as a reader-printer when printing frommicrofilms which are within the specifications ofmicrofilms for which the reader-printer was designed.",ut, since library materials are of different sizes,

different formats, and smaller type faces, micro-forms of such materials frequently are neither easilynor economically printed on the Filmac 100. Thescreen size is simply too small.

In terms of convenience to the user, the changingof lenses in the Filmac 100 leaves something to bedesired. To change, say, from the 13 diameter to the19 diameter lens involves nothing more than liftingone lens out and dropping another lens in place. Butto change to the 7 diameter lens, the condenser lensussd for magnifications above 13 diameters must beremoved. When changing back to higher magnifica-tion lenses, this condenser must be replaced. Thisis accomplished by removing one screw, but thisscrew is in a rather inaccessible place. Some prac-tice, and a bit of manual dexterity are involved in re-moving and replacing this condenser.

The list price of the Filmac 100 with one lensis $629.00. Additional lenses cost $66.50 each.

A classic example of the kind of frustration alibrarian encounters in attempting to acquire suitableequipment is found in the Filmac 200-R. The firstmodelthe Filmac 200handled 35 mm. microfilmmounted in aperture cards. Eventually the 200-Rappeared, which handles 35 mm. microfilm in rollform as well as film in aperture cards. This ma-chine delivers a very good quality print, 18 by 24inches in size, in a few seconds and at a cost ofabout 25 cents. Conceivably, such a machine couldbe quite useful as a reader-printer, both for readingand for making full-size prints from microfilms ofnewspapers. However, as a reader, it fails on twocounts. Newspapers filmed one page per frame inthe 1-A position (with the lines of text parallel tothe short axis of the film) appear on the readerscreen with the lines of text running vertically in-stead of horizontally. Since there is no provisionfor revolving the head of this unit, reading such afilm is a little hard on the neck.

A print from such a projected image is, of course,perfectly satisfactory.

On the other hand, if the newspaper is filmed twopages per frame in the 2-B position at a reductionratio that will fill the maximum available frame area,it is impossible to get a portion of the image on thescreen at all, whether to read it or to print it. I wasrecently informed by a Thermofax sales representa-tive that. this problem can be overcome by adding asupplementary reducing lens to the optical system.How well this might work, I am not prepared to say.In any case, any standard-size newspaper would besubstantially reduced in size, and legibility wouldbe affected accordingly.

I want to turn now to an appraisal of one of themost interesting, and I regret to add, a somewhatdisappointing reader-printerthe Ross Microreader.It is disappointing in that this is that rara avis amicrofilm reader printer which was designed withlibrary microforms in mind. In the Ross Micro-reader, we have a machine designed to be a universalreader. It will handle not only all forms of micro-

transparencies-16 mm. microfilm, 35 mm. micro-film, microfichebut micro-opaques as well, froma 3- by 5-inch microcard to the giantsthe 6- by 9-inch Readex Microprint and the 6i- by 82 -inch Micro-lex sheets. An ingenious set of accessories is sup-plied to make it possible to handle this diversity ofmicroforms.

As a universal reader, it works. One can readany microform on this device. But, as a printer, itexhibits a number of serious drawbacks. To make aprint, the reader screen must be removed and re-placed with what is called a photographic attachment,consisting of a metal frame, a sheet of glass, and apressure plate. To focus the image for printing, atwo-inch-square piece of ground glass is placedagainst the glass of the photographic attachment. Asheet of photographic paper is then placed against theglass and covered with the pressure platen. However,the light output of the reader is so 1nw that only veryhigh- speed photographic materials can be used. Thismeans that the printing step must be done under con-ditions of virtually total darkness.

Secondly, the field of illumination is fairly evenat a magnification of 18 diameters but, at lower mag-nificationsparticularly at 10 diametersthe field ofillumination is markedly uneven. Prints madq atlower magnifications are overexposed in the centerbefore the corners have received enough exposureto appear at all.

Third, the 6- by 7-inch screen is .simply toosmall for the reproduction in a single print of a greatmany types of materials. For reading, the image canbe shifted as needed. But for printing, more than oneprint will have to be made.

Fourth, the Ross Microreader shares, in commonwith the Filmac 100 and the Documat, all of the draw-backs associated with a small screen Size and a lim-ited range of fixed magnifications.

The reader, with a full complement of accesso-ries for reading all types of microforms, costs $312.

Another internal projection device for printingfrom microforms, which has not been tested yet, isthe Microcard Printer. This device is not a reader-printer since, unlike other devices, it does not have areading screen. It has, instead, a view-finder some-what like the eyepiece of a microscope, which is usedto locate the desired image. In contrast with the uni-versality of the Ross Microreader, the MicrocardPrinter is a totally specialized device. It was de-signed for the making of prints from Microcardsand Microcards only.

To make a print, a Microcard is placed in a car-rier and, by moving the card around while lookingthrough the eyepiece, the desired page is located andpositioned. The exposure button is then pressed anda latent image is formed on diffusion transfer nega-tive paper. Following exposure, the negative paperis positioned with the corresponding positive paperand the two sheets are mechanically advanced througha processing tray and out to a compartment wherethey can be removed and separated. The entire


operation takes approximately 45 seconds. The cop-ies are positive, and the materials cost per copy isstated to be 12 cents each. The list price of thismachine is $950.00.

Turning now to external, projection reader-printers, the first we will consider is the Rollacopy,alias "Micromate." Despite what advertisementsmay suggest, let it be clearly understood that bothof these machines obviously came from the samefactory. This machine reminds me again of the "Artof Assemblage" show. A Federal Microfilm Projec-tor (which is hardly more than a slide projectorequipped with a roll film carrier for 100-foot reelsof 35 mm. microfilm) has been mounted on a columnso that it projects vertically instead of horizontally,as it was designed to do. This column has beenmounted on a base board and, to overcome the prob-lem of incident light, the light source has been in-creased from 150 watts to 300 watts. To disperse theheat of this hot projection lamp, a small fan has beenadded. To this has been added another manufactur-er's exposure timing device and, for the processingof the prints, a Polymicro processing unit. A smalleasel with a hinged glass cover plate has been addedto hold the sensitized paper flat.

A similar assemblage, which has a federal en-?arger head instead of a microfilm projector on itscolumn, goes by the name of the Federal "InstantDarkroom."

Since the head is movable on a column, the mag-nification can be controlled to any desired degree be-tween 4 and 12 diameters. To make a print, the mi-crofilm is first placed on a spindle and trackedthrough a pair of glass flats to a take-up reel. Theprojection lamp is then turned on and the imagescaled for size and focused on the easel. A sheet ofsensitized paper is then placed in the easel and theexposure made. Following exposure, the sheet isthen passed through the Polymicro processor.

Since the sensitized material is face up duringthe course of the exposure, room lights must be dim.Exposures with one brand of paperPolyclair Slowfrom a microfilm having an average background den-sity of 1.20, were 12 seconds on the average, with thelens at maximum aperture. However, the optical sys-tem is such that definition at the extreme corners isnot as good as in the center when the lens is at fullaperture. A sharper print could be obtained if thelem aperture was stopped down to the next smalleropening, but this increased the exposure to 24 sec-onds. Had a still smaller aperture been required toensure adequate sharpness, the exposure would thenhave been 48 seconds, which would have requiredvery dim room light indeed if serious fogging wasto be avoided.

In addition to the problems of over-all sharpnessand exposure versus ambient light conditions, a num-ber of other problems were encountered. In the firstplace, the mask in the film carrier has rounded cor-ners instead of square ones. Square corners wouldpermit the entire frame of 35 mm. microfilm to


appear on the easel. The rounded corners cut off apart of the full-frame image.

Second, the focusing mechanism is somewhatcrude in construction. As the lens is rotated forfocusing, the image shifts laterally. At higher mag-nifications, the general shakiness of the projector onthe column makes the whole image move each timethe lens is turned. This makes focusing rathertedious and difficult.

Thin:, the projection lamp gets quite hot whenleft on for any length of time, time such as might berequired to locate a particular frame in a r 11 offilm. One further design fault is in the spindleswhich have handles on the back of the film carrierand which work at a one-to-one ratio. Turningthrough a full roll of microfilm becomes awkwardand time-consuming and, at high magnifications, theimage is constantly jarred by the action of turningthe spindles.

The Rollacopy, marketed by the Andrews Paperand Chemical Company, lists at $395.

The French "Universel" is basically a micro-film reader to which has been added an easel forholding the sensitized paper and a stabilizationprocessing unit. When used on a table top with theeasel, the maximum magnification is only 10 diam-eters. The focal length of the lens is not greatenough to cover a full frame of 35 mm. non-perforatedmicrofilm and the alignment of the components of theoptical system is not true enough to provide an imagewhich is sharp both at the center and edges withoutsome degree of distortion. A second problem occursin setting the mirror for the three different magnifi-cations. The mirror is mounted by means of twoscrews with knurled heads which permit the angle tobe changed at each of the three different magnifica-tions. Not only is the adjustment of the mirror foroptimum sharpness not easily done but the two-screwsystem of locking the mirror in place is not positiveenough. Unless the positioning of the mirror is donewith great care, it tends to slip out of position by itsown weight.

The brightness of the projection lamp is sufficientto permit the use of relatively slow papers under rea-sonable conditions of ambient light, but with negativesof high background density, exposures tend to be toolong for maximum efficiency. Print making can bespeeded up considerably if room light is reduced topermit the use of higher speed papers.

The steps involved in making a copy are thefollowing: The microfilm is threaded into the machineand the desired image focused on the easel. A sheetof sensitized material is then placed under the easelglass and the exposure made by means of an automaticexposure timing device. The exposed sheet is thenpassed through the stabilization-processing section.The "Universel" is the only stabilization-processmachine tested which has an automatic replenishmentsystem for maintaining a constant solution level. Itsoptical faults, however, and the difficulties one en-counters in making the necessary adjustments to

t ,

achieve a clear, true image of the proper size makeits usefulness rather limited. Its list price is $475plus duty and shipping costs.

With the advent of small, rapid, and relativelyinexpensive stabilization process equipment and ma-terials, another possibility suggests itself: Perhapssuch equipment could be used in conjunction withother microfilm readers to make them into readerprinters. This is certainly a possibility; but it islikely, with many existing microfilm readers, to beunsatisfactory simply because the requirements forreading and tile requirements for printing are differ-ent. The chief stumbling block will be in the even-ness of the field of illumination. Such a situation isexemplified in tests made with a Recordak MPEreader. The projected image is brighter in the cen-ter than it is in the corners, but this does not inter-fere with the reading of the image. A print, however,of such an image, may be quite uneven, especially ifhigh-contrast photocopy paper is used. At an expo-sure which will reproduce the center (brightest) areasatisfactorily, the corners may be too faint to read.At an exposure suitable for reproducing the corners,the center may be heavy and filled.

Tests were made with both a stock MPE readerand with an accessory called the Fairfax Platen Ele-vator. The MPE reader works at a fixed magnifica-tion of 19 dig meters which often produces an imagemuch too large to print. The purpose of the FairfaxPlaten Elevatm is to shorten the lens-to-subjectdistance to decrease the size of the image. The de-vice consists of a metal platen mounted on an X-shaped frame, which can be expanded or closed likea scissors. At its maximum extension, it decreasesthe magnification from 19 diameters to /3 diameters.But, regardless of the magnification, the unevennessof the field of illumination caused difficulties inobtaining satisfactory prints.

The last reader-printer I want to talk about isone which has not yet been tested because it is new,it is not in mass production, and it is quite expensive.This is the Filmac 300. The machine is capable ofmany things which other reader-printers are not. Inthe first place, it produces an image up to 11 by 14inches in size. By means of a set of masks, any sizesmaller than 11 by 14 inches can be produced. Sec-ondly, the magnification of the image is controlled bya set of movable mirrors which make possible a con-tinuous range of magnifications from 8 to 20 diame-ters. The process by which the print is made is thesame electrolytic one employed in other Filmacreaders, and the cost per print is in the same pro-portion. Its special features are highly desirable ina reader-printer, but the list price of this machineis $3,600.

At this point, let us consider what the desirablefeatures of a reader-printer for library use would be.

In the first place, screen sizes of 7 by 9i, or 7by 84, or 6 by 7 inches, such as are found in the Docu-mat and the Filmac 100 and the Ross Microreader re-spectively, are too small. The screen size of a

reader-printer for library materials should be atleast 8i by 11 inches, and preferably larger, for theprinting of quarto-size serial publications whosedimensions may be slightly larger than 8i by 11inches. In the second place, full control over mag-nification is a necessity, since library microformsare filmed at reduction ratios which are not stand-ardized and may vary over a wide range. Ideally,the process employed silould be a completely dry one,such as Xerography or Electrofax. Unfortunately,machine costs with electrostatic processes such asthese are likely to be quite high, although materialscosts will be relatively low compared with most otherprocesses. The operation, of course, should bestrictly push-button. There should be no setting ofmirrors, column heights, lens apertures or expo-sures. The print should be a clearly defined black-on-white image and should be permanent. Needlessto say, no such machine exists at this time.

A significant analogy exists between the situationwith respect to book copying equipment and reader-printers. In each, there are one or perhaps two ma-chines which are supLrior to all others in most im-portant respects. In book copying equipment, theXerox 914 machine is probably the best suited to theneeds of librarians. Pending future tests, it appearsquite likely that the Filmac 300 la the most promisingof the reader-printers. But, look at the costshighmonthly rental for the former and a forbidding listprice for the latter.

This situation reminds me of an incident whichoccurred last year when I attended the first GrandPrix race for sports cars ever held in the UnitedStates. This was an impressive show, with driversof international reputation competing in some of thefinest machines ever produced. One active partici-pant in the sports car racing scene is a millionairesportsman who sponsored a racing Jaguar car andretained one of the best drivers in the business torace it. I was standing talking to a turn marshalwhen this man's entourage arrived at the race coursein a huge moving van. In this van, there was not onlythis marvelous automobile but enough spare parts totake care of arty problem, tools beyond number, anda complete crew of highly skilled mechanics whosejob it was to make that care perform as perfectly aspossible. Well, for a great many years, power, speed,and performance in a racing car were a matter of en-gine size. Engine sizeknown as displacementwasexpressed in terms of cubic inches in this countryand cubic centimeters in Europe. And for many yearsthere was a proverb which stated the situation quiteexplicitly. This proverb was: There is no substitutefor cubic centimeters.

As the turn marshal and I watched the unloadingof this expensive automobile from the expensive mov-ing van and saw all of the expensive parts and tools,and the expensive persoiel, he turned to me andsaid: "Man, Oh man, there is NO substitute forcubic dollars:"

QUESTION: Has Mr. Hawken any recommendations


for the purchase of a printer if you already have areader-printer? Is there any machine available thatdoes nothing but print from microforms?

MR. HAWKEN: Of course, prints have beenmade from transparent microfilm for a long, longtime but it has always been a darkroom operation.It is perfectly possible to make prints with, say,stabilization materials, used in conjunction with aphotographic enlarger. There is one machine in par-ticular which has been made for this purpose. It ismade by the Omega people. The machine has a veryhigh-intensity light source and could be used underordinary conditions of room light. The cost of thisparticular enlarger is fairly hig1i, somewhere in theneighborhood of $500 to $600. So long as the roomlight can he controlled, any adequate 35 mm. enlargercould be made into a printer and used with stabiliza-tion materials for rapid print production.

QUESTION: At the present stage of development,would it be better for a library to do without, or touse one of these book copiers with all of itsinadequacies?

MR. HAWKEN: This will depend to some extenton how pressing your need is. I have been fairlycritical of a good many of the contact-reflex bookcopiers and certainly they don't do the job that theXerox 914 does, but one thing wnich I think is impor-tant to keep in mind is that, despite the deficienciesthey may have, they are still so far, far ahead of anyformer system for making copiesthat is, the olddarkroom system. It is a case where half a loaf isvery definitely better than none, and the advantage ofbeing able to make some sort of copy quite quicklyand quite inexpensively is something that is wellworth taking advantage of. So far as future equipmentis concerned (and this entirely a guess), we mightwait for six months for tn improved book copier, oragain, it might be another three years; so it's agamble.

QUESTION: I recall an article in Special Li-braries about ten years ago in regard to a Dutchmanufacturer who was going to, or had already pro-duced a portable microfilm reader to sell for $35.I wonder if our speaker has any knowledge of it, or ifanyone here knows anything about it.

MR. HAWKEN: That was very happy news whenit was announced. Incredible! Thirty-five dollars!I think the current price of that reader is now approx-imately $100 higher. The situation has happened morethan once in which a small, fairly efficient little ma-chine is brought out in Europe, and, by the time itgets to the United States, something happens. Thelast instance I recall was a French reader which was


to sell for about $65 and, when it got to this country,it was $235. So at this moment I know of no microfilmreader that is going to sell for $35.

MR. POOLE: I might add that the reader re-ferred to was the Dagmar, which is on display here.There are two models. They sell one for readingmicrofiche, that is, the card-size transparency; theysell the same reader with two small, simple arm-likeattachments for holding 1-foot reels of microfilm. ifyou would like to see the latter machine, it is on thetable in the back, left side of the exhibit hall. It is avery simple and, as Mr. Hawken indicated, not veryefficient arrangement. It is sold in this country byan organization in Chicago known as Audio-VisualResearch.

QUESTION: Is there at the present time, anyequipment using the stabilization process which couldbe put on the easel of an enlarger?

MR. HAWKEN: Yes there is: the polymicro-processing unit, which is used in the Arcor machineand may be purchased separately, the Photorite Com-pany (which has offices in Chicago) manufactures atleast two sizes of the stabilization processors. Thecompanies supplying either of these machines supplyan extensive line of papers, ranging from contact-speed to very high-speed enlarging papers, and alsoin different weights and different surfaces.

QUESTION: Could the Documat reader-printerbe mechanically modified without too great a cost sothat it would provide full scanning up to the edge ofthe image area?

MR. HAWKEN: It doesn't seem to me that itwould. The arrangement is a case in which the scan-ning device moves out from a U-shaped affair whichholds the lamp house, and the casting and the mount-ing of the casting are just a little too far in. I wouldguess that it could either be cut out a little bit ormoved slightly. That could be accomplished withouttoo much trouble. It would entail deepening thefurrow just a little.

MR. POOLE: Any other questions? Again, letme thank Mr. Hawken on behalf of all of us for histwo very interesting and very informative presenta-tions. Before we leave, let me remind you that wewill have the last session of this Institute in this hallat eight o'clock tonight. We would like to have thoseof you with specific questions, questions you wouldlike to have answered by our panel of eight or tenexperts, bring those questions in written form. Wewill collect them at the door as you enter and willtry to have our people provide you with answers. Wewill also have questions from the floor after thewritten questions have been answered.

i

7

PANEL DISCUSSION:

A Catch-all Question-and-Answer Periodon Library Equipment

The final discussion meeting of the Library Equip-ment Institute, held at the Otto G. Richter Library,University of Miami, Coral Gables, Florida on Sat-urday evening, June 16, convened at 8:00 o'clock,William Geller, moderator; Forrest Carhart, HoytGalvin, William R. Hawken, Homer Lombard, KeyesMetcalf, Frazer Poole, Edward G. Stromberg, HalSyren, Joseph Treys, Martin Van Buren, and EdnaVoigt, panelists.

MR. GELLER: I think that never before in thehistory of the American Library Association havewe had such an array of intelligence, talent, and ex-perience. Collectively, this represents literallyhundreds of years of experience.

Thank you for your written questions. We havesome most stimulating ones, and we will now get intothe work of the evening.

I should like to start out by asking Mr. Hawkena question. Should libraries reverse their policy ofbuying microfilm for use in readers and, instead,purchase negatives, if possible, for use in prints?

MR. HAWKEN: I think this question stems froman idea which is quite widespread; that is, that thequality of prints made from positive microfilm is in-adeq(iate. This is really not so. The positive filmdoes produce a print which is greyish and which isnot terribly attractive, but so far as legibility-is con-cerned, it is very satisfactory.

If you want to try for higher quality (which comesfrom a negative), you can figure that any positive youbuy will cost you twice as much because, from thatpositive, you are going to have to have a duplicatenegative made, and I think that unless you are reallydissatisfied with the appearance of the printnot con-sidering its legibilitythis would be wasteful.

MR. GELLER: Mr. Galvin, why do circulationdesks need to be as wide as they are? Unnecessarywidth provides more space underneath in which tocollect dirt it'd miscellaneous items. Why, for ex-ample, to be specific, is the University of Miamicirculation desk so wide?

MR. GALVIN: I don't have any real answer forthat second questionwhy the University of Miami'scirculation desk is so wide. Frankly, I see no realreason for them to be so wide. Somebody was talkinglast night about the height of circulation desks, or

perhaps the depth. I do not think they need to be aswide as the one at the University of Miami. I thinka narrower one would serve just as well, because,ordinarily, the transactions that take place at thecirculation desk are relatively brief.

MR. GELLER: Mr. Metcalf, would you like tocomment on this?

MR. METCALF: I haven't any idea why the deskhere at the University of Miami is so wide. It is 43inches high, which is unusual, and I think that is verygood. The lower the desk is, the wider it needs to be,to keep the readers from bumping noses with the staffattendant; thus, if you have it 43 inches high, it needsto be only 22 or 23 inches deep unless you want itdeeper to put things in, and I don't like to shelve mybooks too deep.

On the other hand, if the desk were made shal-lower, we would have to ask the manufacturers ofdepressible book trucks to make them narrower, sothat the truck wouldn't stick out, causing people tobump into it as they walk past. In general, I see noreason for a desk to be that deep. It costs more,and I think things tend to accumulate.

MR. GELLER: On the reverse side of this ques-tion, there is another, which I will address toMr. Syren:

It says, "When I buy living room furniture, I don'tfind brass or aluminum name plates on it. When I buykitchen appliances, I do. Library furniture supplypeople often seem to look upon their furniture asthough it were similar to kitchen appliances. Grant-ing their pride in their products, would any of themaccept the notion that the placement of their nameplate is often in poor taste? If the furniture supplypeople do accept this notion, why do they use nameplates? If not, are there librarians who agree withme?"

MR. SYREN: I have been accused of providingfurniture in some libraries that didn't have our nameon it. One reason we identify a piece that we make isthat we like to have people know where it came from.We are proud of it. Now, of course, there are peoplethat might object to having our name on their furniture;in those cases, we are glad to omit the name. But,generally, we have had no serious complaint becauseof a label on the piece. The label acts as an

Question-and-Answer Period on Library Equipment

.. -

59

identification. If, for example, a library is furnishedat a certain time, and additional pieces are boughtlater on, it is a help to know that the original furni-ture came from a particular supplier. We are proudof our furniture and that is why we put the label on it.However, to repeat, if you don't want a label on yourfurniture, you certainly don't have to have it.

MR. GELLER: Mr. Van Buren?MR. VAN BUREN: I do believeand I have made

these comments beforethat librarians who have theproblem of investigating equipment and furniture ofother libraries to see what has been good and whathas been bad should be able to find some identifica-tion. If they find a certain piece of equipment thatespecially suits their condition and is appropriate totheir own library, I think they ought to be able to findout where it comes from. I see nothing at all wrongwith putting a label on it. Every store does it; everyrefrigerator manufacturer does it; every automobilemaker does it; and I think it is rather beside the pointto make the identity of any firm's producta productof which the firm is proudtoo obscure.

MR. GELLER: This one is for Mr. Hawken.What make of Microcard reader would you recom-mend for immediate purchase?

MR. HAWKEN: There are several good Micro-card readers on the market. It is really a matter oftaste and the cost of the machine. There is the Micro-card Reader Mark VII. This is a machine which hasthe glass screen (which.you look at) illuminated.There is another very good one, The American Opti-cal, and it projects in the flat surface.* Beyond that,it is a choice which depends on your taste and thecosts of the machine.

MR. GELLER: The next one I will refer toMr. Metcalf. Should library chairs be purchased onthe basis of appearance, or novelty, or utility? Inother words, which is more important: patron com-fort, or the aesthetic interest of the librarian?

MR. METCALF: I wouldn't want to buy a chairunless it answered satisfactorily four questions: Isit comfortable? Is it steady, so that it will wear?Is it good to look at, and is it inexpensive enough sothat I can afford it? You've got to consider all fourof those points, and then do the best you can. Youcertainly don't want an uncomfortable chair. Youcertainly don't want one that will fall to pieces ina few years; you certainly don't want an ugly one;and you don't want to pay a hundred dollars for it ifyou can get it for twenty. As to which is the mostimportant, you've got to examine the situation in yourown library, taking into consideration your own pocket-book and what you think your readers want.

MR. VAN BUREN: I must repeat the comment ofthe Roman architect Vitruvius of some 2,000 years ago,a comment still valid today. It had to do with archi-tecture, but it is just as applicable to equipment andfurniture. There are three basic elements to consider:function, durability, and beauty. And you cannot take

*Since discontinued.

one or even two without an assessment of all three.I had hoped that I might have made that point strongenough the other night.

MR. GELLER: This next question I would liketo address to Mr. Lombard. Would you recommend"wall attachment in shelving" and, if so, under whatcircumstances?

MR. LOMBARD: I would recommend attachingwall ranges to the wall. It is the usual practice, andI know of no reason why it shouldn't be carried out.

MR. GELLER: I will start the next question outwith Mr. Galvin. In writing specifications for newbuildings, librarians have the aid of, or depend on,architects, but ordinarily, in writing specificationsfor furniture and equipment, librarians are on theirown. Without a consulting specialist, just wl at stepsshould a librarian take in writing specifications forfurniture and equipment?

MR. GALVIN: Well, Mr. Syren's suggestion tous last night was that you certainly should get a con-sultant. It is hard for me to understand why consult-ants are so often difficult to acquire. Perhaps it isthe case that governing bodies and college authoritiesregard furniture as of no great consequence; they mayregard it as easy to buy, in short, a simple matter.They consider the services of a consultant to be un-necessary and, as a result, you are unable to get one.In contrast, those in authority have accepted the ideathat a library needs an architect. Although, in totalvolume, there is not as much money involved in thefurniture and equipment as in the building, we allknow that the furniture and equipment are very im-portant. So, first, I want to evade this question inpart by saying, "Don't give up on getting a consultant."As I mentioned last night, consult your attorneycityattorney, county attorney, whoever it may beto besure you are clear on the legal aspects of your speci-fications. If you are unable to get consulting sex vicesin any way, either through an independent consultantsuch as Mr. Van Buren or the consultants availablethrough the equipment houses, then you are on yourown; however, I can't quite see why you can't get helpfrom such people.

You must make a layout for the furniture, in yourbuilding, and you must do it while the architecturalwork is going on. You must constantly test that layoutagainst the building itself as it evolves in its variousstages, as well as against the preliminary plans. Allthis time you should be looking at other libraries,other sets of specifications, to see and get ideas.(To Mr. Poole:) Do you have such specifications andideas available as solutions to technological problems?

MR. POOLE: We do not yet, but we are workingon them.

MR. GALVIN: They are planning to acquire asort of "library of specifications" at the ALA LibraryTechnology Project. I think this would be most help-ful to youto get such general specificationsbecausethe language tends to be similar in all cases. Youmust remember, however, to relate them to the legaland other requirements of your own community.

60 Question-and-Answer Period on Library Equipment

If you are going to make the whole layout effec-tive, remember that colors are important. The colorscheme throughout must be coordinated with the ideasof the architect. This would include the colors of thefloor, the walls, the ceiling, and any fabrics you mightuse. So, when you make specifications for such things,as sofas, you need to specify the fabric and its color.Here again, you take into consideration the threethings that both Mr. Metcalf and Mr. Van Bt: yen aretalking about: durability, beauty, and function.

MR. GELLER: Thank you. The next question isaddressed to Mr. Carhart. What device do you recom-mend to monitor necking and petting in the stacks atuniversity libraries? Would you talk about publiclibraries too?

MR. CARHART: I think the best advice on thiswould be to adopt the use of large, convex mirrorssuch as those used in department stores, supermar-kets, and similar establishments. With these mir-rors, you can see around corners and you can observethe aisles to catch shoplifters; these mirrors arequite effective if they are properly placed.

MR. GELLER: Now, this is to Mr. Metcalf.Would you discuss lighting in reading room areas,that is, fluorescent lighting, which is used now inalmost all cases?

MR. METCALF: I would like to make a commenton the previous question. Necking and petting can bea serious problem in college libraries, and there arevarious ways of taking care of it or helping to takecare of it. An arrangement for individual seating in-stead of seating for two people helps. I know of atleast one library where the individual tables havebeen made narrower than they should be for convenientuse so that two people can't sit at the same table atone time, and there are other methods such as that.

To go on to the present question: I don't quiteknow what is wanted. Would you discuss lighting inreading room areas? Are fluorescent lights beingused in almost all cases now? In a large percentageof cases, incandescent lights are still being used. Insome cases, there is a combination of incandescentand fluorescent lighting in order to get a somewhatdifferent effect. There are some lighting experts w'iotell us that such a combination provides better lightthan either one alone. Some librarians, realizing thatthere are still some people who dislike fluorescentlights and who say that it puts a strain on the eyesand makes them nervous, will have one room in thebuilding with incandescent light, so that the readerswho don't like fluorescent light can have the otherkind. When the Widener Library at Harvard was re-lightect a few years ago, we left one room with the oldlight. I confess I don't know that anybody goes therebecause he prefers the incandescent lighting, but peo-ple do go there, because that is the room they wantto use.

I think you can get high-quality light with eitherone. You can get high intensity with fluorescent lightwith somewhat less wattage. On the other hand, thefluorescent fixtures and tubes cost more than those

for the incandescent, and which is more economicalto use will depend largely on the cost of electricalpower in the particular place. If your current is veryexpensive, fluorescent light would seem to be indicated;if it is very cheap, you might use the incandescent light.

The incandescent light creates more heat for thelight that it gives and, if you suffer from the heat andcan't have air conditioning, fluorescent light isindicated.

MR. GELLER: Thank you. I would like to ad-dress the next question to Mr. Hawken. What inex-pensive photocopy machines for bound volumes arerelatively trouble-free and simple enough for self-operation by college students?

MR. HAWKEN: "Inexpensive; relatively trouble-free; simple enough for sell-operation by college stu-dents." There is exactly one. That is the Docustatwhich is exhibited here and which takes a 25-centcoin for operation. Anything elseany other machinewould have to be supervised and maintained by thelibrary staff. This machine is maintained by theagent who installs it, and it is just about the only ma-chine that meets this particular set of specifications.

MR. GELLER: Thank you. The next questionI would like to address to Mr. Poole. Have therebeen reports of the use of carpets in any libraries?

MR. POOLE: There have been a number of li-braries that have installed carpeting in the last threeor four years. Although this is too short a period forany real evaluation of the effectiveness and economyof carpets, the librarians who have installed carpet-ing up to the present moment, are enthusiastic aboutthem.

The University of South Carolina, finished in1958, installed carpeting throughout. In California,the Arcadia Public Li'^-eary and the Santa Ana PublicLibrary both have carpeting throughout, or in almostall areas. Shaker High School in New York has analmost completely carpeted school. Included are thelibrary, the classrooms, the corridors, and, I believe,everything except the laboratories. There has been atremendous interest in carpeting in the last few yearsand, in response to many inquiries, the Library Tech-nology Project has prepared a six-page mimeographleaflet which describes the experiences of several li-braries and gives preliminary cost data, and samplespecifications for carpeting, as well as a bibliographyon carpeting. We will be glad to send this free toanyone who wants it, or it can be picked up at theLTP booth in Miami Beach.

MR. GELLER: For this next question, I wouldlike to solicit a three-way answer, starting with Mr.Carhart and then going to Mr. Syren and Mr. Metcalf.

What are the fundamental features which shouldbe built into a loan counter for a college library?I am assuming this means a circulation desk.

MR. CARHART: What you build into the counterdepends on what you are going to do in the way of acirculation control system. One of the things that wefound in the recent study of circulation control sys-tems is that, in general, a hand method of charging

Question-and-Answer Period on Library Equipment 61

and discharging books is more economical for librar-ies than any known machine method. If you want tofollow only the four minimum requirements for circu-lation controlthat is, the four minimum objectivesyou can do this in a college library by hand as eco-nomically, in fact, more economically, than by anymachine method. There are five minimum objectivesfor a college library, because college libraries wantto know where books are when they are not on theshelf. If you are planning on equipment, then the deskshould be designed around the equipment (the equip-ment that you are going to install) or it must be modi-fied to suit that equipment. That is a very general-ized answer but, not knowing what equipment youmight be talking about, I can't say much more thanthat.

MR. GELLER: Thank you. Maybe we need someillumination from the audience. Would the person whoasked this question, could he explain the question fur-ther? Then we could try to tie it down.

SPEAKER FROM THE FLOOR: I asked thequestion because, when you look at the equipment ex-hibited by different companies, you find that it is madeup of simply a group of boxes. I wonder what theequipment companies have in mind when they put outthe circulation desk and loan desk with numerousshelves and covers and rerhaps some wells for cardsand so on. I am inquiri,,e, about the fundamental ele-ments that ought to be in a loan desk; Mr. Carhaxthas answered that in part.

Of course, I recognize that the desk should bebuilt around the equipment you are going to have, butwith respect to a lot of the items we see on displayand in the catalogs, the manufacturers don't seem tohave that in mind at all.

MR. GELLER: This is somewhat related to thequestion of custom-built vs. standardization. Mr.Syren, I think that your experience has led you to holdthat there are certain elements which should go intoa circulation desk.

MR. SYREN: Well, it is a pretty hard questionto answer unless we know exactly the amount of spaceyou are going to allocate in your circulation area fora desk. How much passageway must you allow forpeople going back and forth? You've got to decide forexample, whether they are going to use the pneumatictubes and whether supervision of the tubes should becentered at the desk. You should take account of thetelephones to be installed there.

Basically, the desk we show in a catalog illus-trates only the units available and which can be or-dered by a number. I would say that no more than50 percent of the desks that we make or have madein the past can be ordered simply from the catalog.I think there are always some special features thathave to be built in for a particular college library.To go further: You must determine whether you aregoing to have your books returned at that desk orwhether you are going to handle your reserves there.There are so many unknown factors to consider, it isawfully difficult to give you a simple outline and say

this will be a desk for your library. I just couldn't doit without knowing more of your problem.

MR. GELLER: Mr. Metcalf?MR. METCALF: Mr. Syren has already indicated

that it depends on what you want at the desk, whatcharging system you use, whether you have the re-serve book desk there, how busy the desk is going tobe, and how much space you have for it. I will saythat at the Widener Library at Harvard which is a bigcentral library with a very, very busy desk, that deskis only 13 feet long. There is no way of making it anylonger, either. So, anything that we can't do at thedeskthings the rest of you may do therewe do be-hind the desk at another place, just as readily. Youcan adapt your space to the needs. As I said earlier,I would make the desk high enough so that a personsitting on a high stool would have his eyes on the samelevel with the standing customer. I think this is veryimportant. I don't think that the library attendant whosits down ought to have to look up in order to see theperson he is serving. If the attendant is going to sitdown on a high stool, he's got to have a knee-hole;so I am sure that there is at least one thing youshould have in the desk. In general, it does dependsimply on the space that you have and what you wantto do with it.

MR. GELLER: Thank you. I think Mr. VanBuren also has a comment.

MR. VAN BUREN: I have heard people saying,"Well, it depends on what you want to do with it andhow you want to use it." The gentleman in the audi-ence said, "Well, so far, the standard catalog presentsnothing but a series of boxes with various sorts ofinserts." That has been a bone of contention for mefor some time, and I have a feeling that that is one ofthe greatest weaknesses of library development today.Our card catalog modular segments are made todayalmost precisely the same way they were made in1901, and I maintain that it is time to repeat whatI said the other night, for a renaissance in thinking.I think it is possible to make a modular lending desk,which will have component inserts, and which can beadapted to the purpose without breaking those boxesdown and rearranging them and so on, and of course,this is one of the arguments of the manufacturers ofthe segment boxes which make up lending desks:they can be rearranged. It is true that they can beunbolted and you can put one on this side and one onthe other side and so on, but I question how manytimes in a library's existence this is actually done.

I think the problem is actually in an embryostage. The idea of the lending desk, which is cer-tainly an important, if not vital element in any library,has yet to be properly conceived, even with the proc-esses that we have today. This is not even to speakof electronic and other systems which should be inexistence today and which, perhaps, should have beenin existence ten or twelve or fifteen years ago. Weare already behind the times, and we are not evencatching up with those items.

In short, I am extremely critical of the basic


assumption of the flexibility of lending desk compo-nents today in their modular design concept. Again,to repeat what I have said before: this happens tobe my own opinion.

MR. GELLER: Miss Voigt?MISS VOIGT: What Mr. Van Buren has said, of

course, has been true of all wood desks. However,I do think that a great leap forward has been madewhen we combine metal with wood. There is now adesk available that is more flexible than anythingheretofore. One of the problems of an all-wood deskconstruction is that you must fasten your uprights to-gether at certain places. For instance, it was nevereasy to eliminate all equipment from an end unit sothat you could put a book truck in it. Nov that wehave this new construction, it is possible to removethe equipment from any unit in the desk without un-bolting the front of the desk.

You can leave the desk completely empty for roll-under equipment, such as typewriters, visible indexes,book trucks of any kind. Om of the criticisms of theold wood desk is that you had to crawl inside to getthe books out of the back. With this new construction,you can have a floating upright in there. You can usea standard shelf from your steel book stacks and in-stall it so that the face of the shelf is flush with theinside of your desk. If, on the other hand, you wantto insert some card units, or even letter-size orlegal-size files, you can put in two shelves, one inback of the other. They will support these deeperunitsanything up to 24 inches. I think that if youhaven't seen this, it is worth looking into.

MR. GELLER: Mr. Poole and I have been ex-changing ideas on this too. Did you know, for exam-ple, that the manufacturers will build to your specifi-cations and your special needs? Would you like toreturn to this, Mr. Metcalf?

MR. METCALF: I don't believe Mr. Van Burenhas any idea of the work that librarians and theequipment firms have put in on this problem and thechanges that have been made in the past generation.I think it's fair to say that in many, many universitylibraries and public libraries, we are able to carrytwice the work that we were able to carry a shortgeneration ago, and this is because we have madechanges. Then, I would like to bring in an entirelydifferent point: Probably more importance than thearrangement of the desk is the need for a good house-keeper standing back of it.

MR. GELLER: Since I gave Mr. Metcalf achance at rebuttal, I will have to give Mr. Van Burena rebuttal.

MR. VAN BUREN: I have offered some rathersevere criticism perhaps, but I don't mean it in anybitter sense. If I have been critical, my intention isonly to try to spur the manufacturers on further thanthe developments that they have been making. I amnot denying that they have been making progress.I do know that the feeble little efforts that I havemade on my own (with precisely what Miss Voigttalked aboutthat is, with little inserts and so forth)

without a shop, without a manufacturer, with just afew drawings, spending something like a thousanddollars out of my own pocket for no future gain of myownhave produced some startling results. Patentattorneys in Washington have irelicated (and I have aten- to fifteen-page report on this) that no patentabledevelopments have been made in that direction sinceabout 1903. Now that is the only answer I have to give.If all of those developments have been made and ifthey are truly revolutionary and constitute improve-ments, I am a little bit surprised as to why there areno such new patents on file. I think it is up to themanufacturers, if they are really sincere, to developthese things to such a point that they at least areoriginal enough to be patentable.

MR. GELLER: This is addressed to Mr. Hawken.In your opinion, how necessary would a microfilmreader and/or a photocopy machine be for the libraryof a two-year college, which, at the present time, hasa library budget of $23,500, including salaries, a stu-dent body of 700 to 750, and a collection of 17,500volumes? The student body is expected to grow to1,000 by 1965.

MR. HAWKEN: That is a good one. I think theanswer (taking off from an answer Mr. Syren gaverecently) is that this has too many imponderables Mit. The need for a micro reader and/or a photocopymachine simply stems from the requirements of theparticular situation. If you have micro forms, youare going to need some equipment for reading them.If you have a demand on the part of your students orfaculty for photocopies, then you are going to needa photocopy machine.

MR. GELLER: This next one is addressed toMiss Voigt. When is the proper time to call in aconsultant? Is it ethical to use the services of aconsultant from a commercial firm when you cannotguarantee to give him any business?

MISS VOIGT: A consultant should be engaged inthe project when the plans are in a fluid stage, beforethe engineer's work has begun. It will be very expen-sive if you try to make changes after that. It is im-portant to test your layout with the furniture. Some-times very minor things are suggested, such as themoving of a door or a window, and these may helptremendously in achieving greater capacity.

Manufacturers have offeredand I think it is allright to go into thisa fee-agreement plan, just soyou will not be obligated to the one manufacturer.The plan works like this: In the first place, let mesay that doing a complete job sometimes requireswork over a period of years. Very often, it will re-quire two years between the time the plans arestarted and the time that the specifications go outfor bid. No manufacturers could risk an investmentof that kind, involving thousands of dollars, if heknew that it might be completely wasted. Therefore,a fee-agreement is offered whereby a certain sum isdetermined, generally a percentage amount, whichrepresents a small percentage of the total cost of theequipment. The library or the architect agrees to


I"

pay that amount to the consultant, if his firm does notreceive a large percentage of the order. In otherwords, it is not an arrangement intended to make aprofit. It is an arrangement to cover the manufactur-er's costs of consulting services if he should kse theorder. In that way, a manufacturer's consultant cangive you complete service and untiring effort.

MR. GELLER: Mr. Lombard, would you like tocomment on this?

MR. LOMBARD: The ideas expressed regardingthe paying of a fee for specifications has considerablemerit. However, in the past, the thought has beenlargely that you, as a representative of a companyfurnishing library equipment, would furnish the dataon the following basis: you hoped that you wouldcreate in the mind of the prospect the idea that youwere a satisfactory concern to deal with, and, in fact,that he would like to deal with your firm because ofthe advice you offer and the checking you do on whathad been recommended. That is, or can be, ratherexpensive, and I have sometimes felt that, where youdo incur expenses and do not receive an order, inreality, all of the parties negotiating orders fromyou pay for it because you have no other way ofcharging up that expense. I do believe that thecharge for that kind of service is something to becarefully considered by each individual library, andI also feel that a specification should be based onfollowing a line that would permit competition andnot exclude it. At the same time, I do believe that,frequently, the services you pay for is oftentimesbetter than given for free.

MR. GELLER: This next question is addressedto Mr. Poole. Would it not be to the best interest ofthe furniture manufacturers for libraries to agreeon some common, minimum, standardized specifica-tions which they could use as a basis for quality and.further, to produce such a certified list?

MR. POOLE: Let me answer this rather indi-rectly by saying that one of the objectives of the Li-brary Technology Project has been to develop stand-ards for library furniture and for library shelving.We have in mind the development of performancestandards rather than manufacturing specifications.Two committees, sponsored by ALA under the gen-eral direction of the Library Technology Project,have been established within the American StandardsAssociation in an attempt to do this very thing.I think that such standards should be developed by anoutside organization such as the ALA rather than bythe manufacturers. This is_because,the manufactur-ers would probably find that problems of competitionwould almost inevitably defeat such an attempt ontheir part.

This is not an easy project, and we have maderelatively little progress with it. However, we hopeand I am sure that eventually this will cometo de-velop performance standards which will be useful andwhich will form at least a minimum type of specifica-tion. By "minimum," I do not mean that these will be

at the bottom so far as quality is concerned. Wewould defeat our own purpose if we did.

Someone has asked (not in the meeting): Whythe emphasis on performance standards? The answeris simply that, in this respect, we are not concernedwith the aesthetics of furniture. We would, I am sure,defeat attempts to develop better-looking equipmentor better equipment if we were concerned with theaesthetics of design. We are concerned only withperformancehow well a table, chair, bookstack, orcard catalog cabinet performsnot with how it ismade. Perhaps one of the manufacturers would liketo respond to this, too.

MR. GELLER: Mr. Syren?MR. SYREN: Well, I think that Mr. Poole has

covered this very well. But from a manufacturer'sstandpoint, I think that each one of us takes pride inwhat we are developing. For example, we feel thatwe probably produce the best catalog tray there ison the market. No doubt one of our competitorscould say, "Yes, you've got a good tray, but I thinkwe go a little further." So, I think it would be almostimpossible for anyone to say that we are going tomake a catalog tray and have everybody agree on itand everybody make it. I don't think it would bepractical to do that, because then you take away theincentive of our company to develop something better,a better product that we could try to manufacture.The same thing would happen to the competitor. Andthis would occur with steel book stacks, both bracketand slotted styles. It is our intention to try to pro-duce something that has characteristics which wefeel are selling points; that is the reason for ourdevelopment. We do produce, as Mr. Poole says,equipment that will perform according to the stand-ards that ALA may set up. I recall that in Canada,several years ago, several manufacturers producedfiling cabinets of a certain given size. But in theprocess, something was taken away. There were,I think, three manufacturers, and they made all thecabinets exactly alike so that they would be able tointer-member them. But the incentive of those man-ufacturers to produce, perhaps, a 24-inch file insteadof a 28-inch file was removed. The point is that thisis the reason why we in this country are outstrippingmost of the world; it is because we strive to producesomething better, not simply try to be uniform andstandardized. But that is what actually happens whenyou develop uniform specifications.

MR. GELLER: I have a rather complicatedengineering question addressed to Mr. Metcalf; I havregiven it to him and would ask, since he has been sit-ting here digesting it, if he will read the question andthen answer it, please.

MR. METCALF: Since your chairman said thiswas a complicated engineering question, I will startoff by saying that I am not an engineer. The questionreads as follows:

"Are there special difficulties related to goingdown more than one level below grade in providing


for a library's space needs that would make this asecond- or third-choice solution to a library spaceproblem rather than a first?"

Circumstances alter cases. There is a note atthe end of this indicating "New York area." Well,certainly, the area does make a difference. I amsure that here, outside, you wouldn't want to putmore than one floor below the ground. I cannot speakfor the New York City area, but for Ithaca, New York,in the university library, they would have been gladto have a sub-basement below the basement, whichitself is below ground level. In that case, they de-cided not to put it in because they could not afford it.They ran into solid rock which would have been veryexpensive to remove. Thus, the decision dependsfirst on the soil condition and the cost of makingthe excavation.

At Harvard, we have found that we could have afloor below the entrance level (if we planned justright) that would have some windows in it, and thenwe could have a floor below that, which would be asub-basement, and then, in three buildings that havegone up in connection with libraries at Harvard intte last twenty-five years, we have a sub-basement,because that was the cheapest space we could find inthat particular location.

The excavation was easy; it could be done with asteam shovel. The drainage problem was not serious,as it might be in some places. In part, the decisionwill depend upon the value of the land. Certainly, ifthis New York area mentioned by the questioner is onWall Street, there isn't any question that you would doa sub-basement, and I suspect that there are buildingsin the Wall Street area where space is worth I don'tknow how many dollars a square foot, where you godown four or five stories as sub-basement levels.I have been in New York City buildings with at leastfive sub-basements in which they have cafeterias,with a staff and other things, and they have usefulspace.

In a library, it will depend also partly on whatyou want to put in this sub-basement space. Some ofus would hesitate to create large areas for use byreaders without any windows at all, although I confessthat in the Lamont Library, we have a room that seats60 readers just inside the back door. Even though itis so low that it can't have windows, just as manyreaders go there as to the other rooms. The readersdon't seem to care. In the sub-sub-level, in Lamont,two floors below this one I have just spoken about, wehave space for 60 more readers, and the depth hasnever bothered anybody.

The space way down in the ground has some ad-vantages, too. If you want to air condition such space,it is less expensive than up above because, when youget down ten feet or so underground, the temperatureand the humidity conditions tend to remain the samethe year around. In the sub-basement of the HoughtonRare Book Library, where we are very careful withthe air conditioning, it is so well insulated that we

have turned off the air conditioning for twenty-fourhours and have not had a variation of even one percentin temperature or relative humidity. There are alsosome other advantages. If you have a five-level build-ing and you can put two floors below ground and twoabove, you can perhaps get along without an elevatorfor the public. There are various things of that kindthat need to be kept in mind. It just depends on thelocal conditions. As I said, circumstances alter cases.

MR. GELLER: Thank you. We have been jumpingthrough the questions and we have quite a number ofstimulating ones coming up, but I want to say at thispoint that, so far we have had none addressed to Mr.Treyz. I take this to be a tribute to his very finecoverage of catalog card reproduction systems.

The next question is addressed to Miss Voigt.Assuming that wooden book cases in an old buildingmeet the test of function and durability, can they betreated or refinished in areas of a new building tomeet the test of beauty? Could you discuss this interms of cost and practicability and other factors?

MISS VOIGT: If you have some wooden bookstacks now that are satisfactory, by all means re-usethem. They can be refinished. In areas of the newbuilding, it probably will be less expensive if you hada local refinisher who could do a good job for you;otherwise, there would be the expense of crating andre-crating and shipping charges, which are consider-able. If you are going to buy some new equipmentfor this building and want to refinish the old stacksto match the new equipment, I think almost any manu-facturer would cooperate, and perhaps, would sell youthe matching stain and the finishing materials so thatyou could have a local man do it.

We recently secured an order for some furniturefor a college library and we are doing just that for asmaller piece of equipment. It happens to be an atlascase; their janitor is qualified to do the work, and heis going to do it for them.

I might say that, if your stacks are now in a lightfinish and you want to make them dark, you will nothave too much trouble. However, if they are in a darkfinish and you want to make them light, that is moretroublesome, because you will have to get the stainand so forth out of the wood.

MR. GELLER: Thank you. The next one is ad-dressed to Mr. Hawken. What is the best reader fora 62- by 9-inch microprint?

MR. HAWKEN: This question of "best" is alwaysa difficult one. There are perhaps two or three read-ers that are good. Microprint makes one themselves.The American Optical reader will also accept thatsize. Both produce a good, clear visual image on thescreen. They vary somewhat in price, and also in theway they are operated. There is no one "best" reader.

Again, it will have to be decided or. the featuresthat you like in a particular reader and also on thebasis of how much money you want to spend. The nextquestion is addressed to Mr. Metcalf. How much il-lumination is needed in stacks and reading rooms?


MR. METCALF: I don't think that this is a fairquestion. I am a prejudiced party. If you go to theIlluminating Engineering Society, you can get theirstandards. They will say, or did say 15 years ago,that you ought to have 35 foot-candles. If you askthem today, they will say that you ought to have 70foot-candles. They tell me that if you have occasionto ask them a few years from now, they will say youought to have 100 foot-candles. I can't quite under-stand that, because I think that the human eye takeslonger than a generation to change to that extent.

As I said, I am a prejudiced party and I preferto go to the eye specialist to see what he says. I havegone to the best eye specialists I can find in thiscountry, and they have said that the human eye is avery, very adjustable organ. It can stand, withoutany harmful results, not only 70 foot-candles or a '100 foot-candle, but 500 foot-candles. We have agood deal more than that right t- Ire in Miami andCoral Gables, if the sun would only come out. Thespecialists also say that the eye will not be damaged,if you have only 10 foot-candles. It may be a littlemore strain, they say, but it wouldn't do you any harm.

One expert has told me that anything over 20 foot-candles doesn't do you any additional good. He hastold me that for publication. He has saidand I amnot going to name him on this accountthat, actually10 foot-candles are entirely satisfactory. Now, I'vegot more to say than that, however. I am sure thatmy eyes and your eyes are not the same. I am surethat some of us need more light than others, and thatreading catalog cards with handwriting on them andold manuscripts, scribbled in pencil, calls for higherintensity than is needed for an average book. I seeno reason why there shouldn't be more light in someparts of the building than in other parts so that whenyou have to read something particularly difficult, youcan find higher intensity. In that connection, I sug-gest that if you have your entalance lobby lighted lessbrilliantly than the rest of the buildingnot morebrilliantly, as some of us tend to have ityou will befooled as you go into the reading room; it will lookbrighter and you will think you have plenty of light.

We have done that at Harvard and we have foundthat 20 or 25 foot - candles are entirely satisfactoryfor almost all use

It really isn't, the intensity at all that counts; itis quality, and if you have the right quality, your eyewill adjust to whatever it is. I would like to add an-other point: What do you want to pay for it? If youhave 100 foot-candles of light, it will cost you justfive times as much as if you have 20 foot-candles.One more thing, which I am sure is very unwise:When the University of Miami gets its lighting billfor this building for a year, they are going to be infor a surprise.

MR. GELLER: There is another question hereon carpeting. This is a red-hot subject. I would liketo ask Mr. Van Buren and Mr. Poole to comment onthis one. I should like to hear comments on the use

of carpeting as floor covering in libraries eitherover-all or in certain areas. Mr. Van Buren?

MR. VAN BUREN: There has been an awful lotof talk about carpets, about rugs and other types offloor coverings. The Carpet Institute has instituteda series of tests starting about three or four yearsago, and they have a great many documents availableconclusive tests of this and that. They did a numberof tests in public schools in Texas. Those documentsare available from the American Carpet Institute orfrom any of the leading carpet manufacturers, andI think they are worth studying.

We have used some carpeting in libraries andI have seen it in other buildings. A few years ago,banks were very reluctant to use carpeting and nowit is a common floor covering in banks. They arethoroughly sold on it. Personally, I still remainon the fence.

Now, we do use open-area rtigs and we use themconsistently, and I thoroughly believe in them for avariety of reasons. Number one, an area rug will,for example, define a lounge grouping of furniture.In contrast to this, where you have hard-floor cover-ing, you may decide that you want furniture arrangedin certain groupsperhaps a sofa, coffee table, orsomething else here and there. But, by the end ofthe day, those pieces of furniture have been movedaround so much that the whole concept of the roomarrangement is lost; it looks like nothing more thana jumble.

The area rugs serve the purpose of holding thosefurniture groups together. As most libraries areplanned today with large reading areas in which thefurniture is arranged to achieve a certain psychologi-cal or symbolic effect, the ability of those areas toretain a favorable visual organization is very impor-tant. And for some reason, an area rug perhaps tenfeet square will serve to hold those groups of furni-ture together.

Furthermore, at night, when the janitors cleanup the floors, there is a basis for replacing the furni-ture in its original, organized position. Otherwisethe janitor doesn't know where to put it. Anotherreason LT smaller area rugs is that, in future main-tenance, they are not so costly to replace. They areeasy to clean, and although there are many detergentsand various types of cleaning agents in which you canclean carpets on the floor, it still is an advantage tojust be able to pick the rug up and send it out. So,over a period of many years an area rug is a verysmall investment to coordinate the continuity offurniture within a library.

There is also the matter of color. The use ofcarpeting is one of the most effective ways of intro-ducing color into a large, open reading area. If youhave an essentially neutral or very light floor, suchas we have in this room, you can occasionally takesmaller area rugs, in relatively bright colors, andyou spot color throughout the building. In doing this,you introduce an atmosphere of cheerfulness. So,


, - ....7 IMIIIM

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IF

I am quite an exponent of area rugs in certain cases.Of course, there are occasions where abuses occur.Also, in this part of the country, especially, there aredifficulties with mildew and the like. So far as wall-to-wall carpet is concerned, again, I am still studyingthe documentation of the American Carpet Institute.They put forth a very convincing argument. I am notagainst wall-to-wall carpeting and yet I am not quitecompletely for it. We have gone into it very recentlyin one or two libraries, and none of us are completelypro or con.

There may be some representatives of the carpetindustry here who may be able to put up very convinc-ing arguments. There may be some people very muchagainst it. The basic argument of the Carpet Institutein favor of wall-to-wall carpeting is this: grantingthat the initial cost (Df installing carpeting is slightlyhigher than that for high-quality vinyl tile, the cost ofmaintenance for carpets over a period of five or tenyears is considerably less than maintenance costs fortile. Personally, on wall-to-wall carpeting, I am notgoing to argue the point one way or the other. Per-haps one of the other members here might.

MR. GELLER: Miss Voigt, do you have acomment on this?

MISS VOIGT: You might be interested in part ofa discussion that came up recently. We are workingon a new public library and the library board had todecide whether they were going to specify carpetthroughout on three floors or whether they would usecarpet only in the administrative offices and the chil-dren's roomthe latter only because they wanted thechildren to be able to sit on the floor. In discussingthis, the board went along with the idea of carpet onall three floors, but suggested that the main aisle ;:;?,of a hard-floor covering. This raised another prob-lem: if you are going to use waxing machines on partof the floor, you are apt to get the wax on the edge ofthe carpet. I had that problem at home and, believeme, it is not easy to correct. After reviewing thisthing in discussion, it was decided that they would usea hard-floor covering, or a tile, just outside of theelevator, but to use wall-to-wall carpeting for therest of it.

Now, I am not at this stage suggesting the use ofwall-to-wall carpet in every case. I think there aremany questions to be considered. The people that dorecommend carpeting, of course, emphasize the quiet-ness of it. Things that drop make no noise. Theyalso say that the public using carpeted rooms tendalmost automatically to take better care of the rooms.Even children in schools with carpeting seem not tothrow things around so much. Then of course, it alsocreates an elegant appearance in the room.

MR. POOLE: I don't know that I can add a greatdeal to what Mr. Van Buren and Miss Voigt have al-ready said, but perhaps this might interest you. Wehave seen the same information, much of which Mr.Van Buren covered, from the American Carpet Insti-tute, and I think we can suspect that they have some

slight bias in primoting the use of carpet. Neverthe-less, in some of the schools and in some of the librar-ies where it has been used, one of the big argumentsfor carpeting has been its excellent acoustical prop-erties. Specifically, it is stated that, in using carpetson the floor, you stop noise where it starts. In atleast one or two buildings we have heard about, theyhave been able to eliminate (and I have not been ableto check back and find out how successfully it hasbeen done) acoustical tile on the ceiling because theyused carpet on the floor. This, obviously, representsa big saving. How well this has worked out, as I saidwe don't know. Shaker High School in New York,which I think was the first high school in the countryto install carpeting, found a definite psychologicaleffect on discipline. The high school principal atShaker wrote a rather strong report some time agoin favor of carpeting in which he pointed out that, ap-parently, the children felt somewhat as if they werein their own homes: They treated the furniture morecarefully and they were quieter; the usual loud voices,the loud talking seemed out of place. Pencils andother objects that were dropped did not make a noiseon the floor. In short, their experience has beenexcellent.

The librarian at the University of South Carolinawrote to us some time ago that after thirty-threeyears of carpeting, they were still highly in favor ofit. The Arcadia Public Library in California toldLTP they would never go back to tile.

This does not mean, obviously, that there areonly advantages in the use of carpet. Most of thepeople who suggest carpet recommend immediatelythat you buy an extra amount of carpet in order toreplace sections which may become worn in front ofdoors or elevators, or where somebody spills a bottleof ink or something else which would cause spots dif-ficult to remove. Ths American Carpet Institute'sfigures on cleaning, as Mr. Van Buren has pointedout, argue that the use of the carpet is justified be-cause, over a period of five to ten years, the savingsin reduced maintenance costs will more than pay theextra cost of the carpet. This does not take into ac-count, however, the necessity for replacing sectionswhich may become worn through unusually heavytraffic or because of stain damage caused by inkor other substances.

There are, as Mr. Van Buren said, a number ofpros and cons, but certainly thus far, the people whohave used carpeting are highly enthusiastic about it,so far as we have been able to determine. Some peo-ple have asked us here at this meeting about variousfibers in carpeting. The experts agree that wool is thepreferred fiber. There are a number of new synthetics,but these have not proved to be satisfactory for heavytraffic, or for long-term wear. Filament nylon was,for some years, still undergoing improvement. Withinthe last year filament nylon has been improved suf-ficiently so that it now can be used in a blend withwool, but wool is still the preferred material.


xF

MR. GELLER: I have passed the word around tothe panel members that, if they have any further com-ments they would like to add, they should, because wehave come to the end of our questions. Mr. Metcalf,I think, indicated that he desired to say something.

MR. METCALF: I am speaking out of turn.I was very glad Mr. Poole brought up the question ofreplacement, and I think we need to keep in mind thedifficulty of replacing a worn strip. Unless you'vegot a large stock of the original carpeting at hand,you may find it impossible to match the color. Fur-thermore, the color of the areas originally laid downand which were not replaced might have faded, whichwould create a bad situation. Mr. Van Buren canprobably answer this for us: Couldn't you use a dif-ferent color of carpet 7 .ie places where you aregoing to have very hear, j traffic and where the wearis going to occur first and then be able to use a dif-ferent but non-conflicting color for the main carpet?Of course, the main carpet will remain the same,but you could more readily replace the other. Itmight be a very small square yardage of carpet.I think if we planned in this way, we could reduce thecost of keeping the carpeting in good shape.

One other thing: I have found that the placesthat carpets wear most rapidly are on stairs andthere, I think, it is partly because we have neglectedproper padding on the stairs and at the edge of thetread. That is distressing enough when the stairsare open, but having the carpet wear out can beextremely unfortunate.

MR. GELLER: Thank you. We can probablydevote a whole institute to the subject of carpeting,and I would guess that the next time we have such aninstitute, we will have had more experience with car-peting. In the meantime, will those of you who havehad direct experience with all aspects of library fur-nishings and equipment please send the informationalong to Mr. Poole so that such actual experiencedata can be collected systematically.


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MR. GELLER: Well, this brings us to the endof our questions. I want to express, on behalf of theaudience, my deep thanks and sincere appreciation tothe great talent and experience on the platform withus tonight.

MR. METCALF: I would like to say how muchI appreciate what the Library Technology Project isdoing in connection with furniture and equipment.Their information is going to help me on the bookI am preparing for the Council on Library Resources.I hope you will continue to send questions into LTPso that, as they find the answers, I won't have to putthem in the book.

MR. GELLER: Seconding Mr. Metcalf's sugges-tion, this Institute has been successful primarily be-cause of all of you who have supported us by yourquestions, by your interest, by your willingness tospend your time in these concentrated sessions.

Mr. Poole and I feel encouraged to plan anotherInstitute two years from now, There will be a BuildingInstitute in Chicago, we think next summer, and then anEquipment Institute the year after. And to help us inthis, if you have any comments and criticisms aboutthe makeup of and arrangements for the EquipmentInstitute, they are most welcome. It would be a greathelp to Mr. Poole, I know, if you would send him yourcomments (or to me) about what we didn't do that youwould like to have us do, and also what you liked aboutthe Institute. We have heard lots of you say that youliked the Institute, but we also would like to have yougo home and, in the privacy of your office, write us aletter to that effect, because it is the only way we knowhow we are meeting your demands and this is what weare here for. So, on behalf of Mr. Poole and myself,we do sincerely thank you. You have been a wonderfulaudience,

Our thanks to the University of Miami, to ArchieMcNeal and his staff, to the ALA staff, and to all of theparticipants who made this Institute so successful andso helpful.

-rz

Documents

ReSUMS ED 031 894 Er 003 114 Library Furniture …DOCUMBH? ReSUMS ED 031 894 Er 003 114 Library Furniture and Equipment. Proceedings of a Three-Day Institute (CoralCables, Florida,