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The first appearance of the floor case, the precedent of the modern stack, appears in the library of the University of Leyden in 1610, of which a large illustration is given by Clark[6] and a smaller one by Fletcher.[7] Here is seen the utilization of the whole floor of a book room through parallel cases evidently open to access, although the books are all chained. The library is lofty and the shelves lighted not directly from stack-windows, but by chapel windows high in the wall, which appear to fill the room with ample diffused light. Some of the “broad-brims” pacing the floor may have been our Pilgrim ancestors, who, for the ten years subsequent to the date of this picture, were living at Leyden and frequenting the University.

The Radcliffe Library at Oxford, designed in 1740, seems to be the earliest example in England of a circular reading room lighted from the roof. This is said to have been suggested by the central reading room of the old Wolfenbüttel Library, built about 1710.

“The first architect,” says Duff-Brown[8] “to plan a library which in any way meets the modern requirements of giving ample accommodation was Leopoldo della Santa, who in 1816 published in Florence a quarto pamphlet, which is an attempt to construct a library building entirely from an utilitarian point of view.” The plan, which Brown reproduces, suggests Dr. Poole’s plan which was embodied in the Newberry Library of Chicago.