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Worpole, Ken. Contemporary Library Architecture: A Planning and Design Guide London: Routledge, 2013. 216 pp. ISBN 978-0-415-59230-7 (paperback), 978-0-415-59229-1 (hardback). £39.99, £105.00
'A city with a great library is a great city.' This inscription above the door of the reading room of the Nashville Library provides the title of the opening chapter. According to Ken Worpole: 'No modern town or city is truly complete without a confident central library functioning as a meeting place and intellectual heart of civic life'. Libraries featured in this chapter (the only chapter in Part 1 of the book, 'The library in the city') include Seattle Public Library, the Library of Birmingham and Clapham Library in London.
In the second part of the book - 'The libraryness of libraries' - Worpole traces the history of library architecture from the library at Alexandria through to the present day. This part comprises chapters entitled 'Libraries: the "sacred" spaces of modernity', 'What you see is what you get: key elements of library architecture' and 'A new wave of library architecture'.
Part 3 - 'Planning and design processes' - gives practical advice. There's plenty on the nitty-gritty. Design points to be avoided include bad lighting, complex maintenance and insufficient work and storage space. Among the features to be encouraged...