Page:Library Construction, Architecture, Fittings, and Furniture.djvu/328

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LIBRARY ARCHITECTURE

into a square area in each wing, one on the outer sides, to the open air.

Shelving is provided for about 800,000 volumes, and the accommodation can be increased by continuing the wings out to the same distance as the reading-room. In the front of the building are a students' room, and rooms for manuscripts and incunabula, with the librarian's office and catalogue

room. A notable feature of the building is an arcade, which runs round the semicircular half of the reading-room. The books most in demand are shelved there in bookcases placed at right angles to the outside walls, so forming radii of a circle. The building was erected in 1888–91 from the designs of Herr Rossbach, at a cost of about £75,000.

The new library at Strassburg, which replaces