College and Research Libraries
September 2002, Vol. 63, No. 5
Book Review
Brown, Carol R. Interior Design for Libraries: Drawing on Function & Appeal. Chicago: ALA, 2002. 143p. $45, alk. paper (ISBN 0838908292). LC 2002-1325.
Carol Brown is assistant director of the Fort Bend County Library in Richmond, Texas. She has held library positions at Indiana University and the Houston Public Library, and has been a library planning consultant. In addition, she is the author of Planning Library Interiors and Selecting Library Furniture (Oryx, 1989).
This book is a good hands-on, basic manual written in a concise, easy-to-understand style. Short and approachable, it is filled with interesting and enlightening information. It contains fifteen color plates and thirty-two black-and-white illustrations. In her second chapter, “The Planning Phases of a Library Building Project,” the author clearly delineates what is entailed by the programming, schematic design, design development, and development of construction drawings phases and what, as librarians and planners, we need to expect to see and have happen during those phases. As a librarian currently involved in planning a new library building, I experienced several “Ah ha!” moments as I was reading through it.
As one would expect from the title of this work, the author does a particularly good job of addressing basic interior design and furnishings issues. She quickly aligns herself with traditionalists, reminding readers that a square or a series of squares is the most flexible shape for a new library. Architects and designers might think that this shape is too simplistic and uninteresting, but long narrow or round rooms simply to do not allow for the efficient layout of shelving or delivery of services or for the necessary flexibility to change the layout of a building as new demands and services arise. She also cautions the library planner to be wary of atriums, fountains, gardens, and bodies of water. Despite their obvious esthetic appeal, these elements carry their own inherent problems. Atriums take up valuable space and can create incredible cold air falls. Fountains are a maintenance problem looking to happen, and gardens can lead to moisture and other environmental problems. In addition, Brown addresses ceiling heights, power and data locations, and furniture arrangements with sage, but usable, advice. She includes building examples for a school and a college library as well as for two public libraries.
The chapter on library furnishings is particularly illuminating and filled with practical guidelines. The design and layout of service desks, especially circulation and reference desks, involve some of the most important planning decisions that librarians make. Brown reminds readers that a reference desk can accommodate a staff work surface of twenty-nine inches, with a transaction counter of thirty-six inches. The transaction counter provides a convenient surface for easy viewing of a reference book by both librarian and user. On the other hand, transaction counters for circulation desks do not work: “It is easier for staff to push a stack of checked out materials across a desktop to the user than to pick up the stack and lift them to the higher level of the transaction top.” She includes specifications for a two-part reference desk, which can serve as a model for a small library project.
Although the author provides an excellent overview of shelving issues, she does not touch on compact shelving, which is an option that most academic libraries have to face in this era of tight budgets and competitive uses for assignable square footage. Unfortunately, any discussion of computer furniture can quickly seem outdated; Brown is a strong proponent of computer workstations with recessed monitors but fails to mention flat LCD monitors, which are all the rage and fast replacing the much bulkier, standard CRT.
The single most useful part of this volume is an appendix that sets forth “Interview Questions for Obtaining Information from Library Staff.” It encompasses shelving, circulation and reference desks, public computer stations, reading tables and chairs, teen and children’s areas, circulation, reference, technical services, technology work areas, and training rooms. These simple, but incisive, questions can be used by “architects, interior designers, and consultants as they are gathering information in preparation for programming, planning and selecting furniture for a library.” Librarians can use them to get ready as well.
This volume is intended “for library planners, for architects and designers who have not built libraries in the past … and for architects who are interested in hearing about interior design from a librarian’s perspective.” The author also says that the “information presented is relevant to any kind of library—academic, public, school, and special”; and although that is true, it will much more likely be rewarding to first-time public library planners. Academic librarians who find themselves confronted with planning and building or renovating a college or university library will have to turn to the 887 pages of Philip D. Leighton and David C. Weber’s Planning Academic and Research Library Buildings (Chicago: ALA, 1999, 3rd ed.). However, it would be unfair to compare these two works. Planning Academic and Research Libraries provides (sometimes in excruciating detail) everything one needs to know, whereas Interior Designs for Libraries has a much more modest agenda, which it accomplishes quite well.—Larry M. Boyer, Appalachian State University.