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“I do not believe there is a conflict between the librarian or the committee, and the architect. There is a common meeting ground.”—E. B. Green.[20]

“The hostility between beauty and utility is often more apparent than real.”—Patton.[21]

There will inevitably be differences, at first, even among consulting librarians. Get together! Let librarian and architect compare views until they find some way of satisfying both, then present a united front to the building committee. If, however, they cannot agree, formulate their difference clearly and present it to the committee for decision, as business trustees often present doubts as to their trust, in a friendly suit before a court.

But remember that it is a contest, and have the library side presented as ably as the architect’s.

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Modern library science is yet in its adolescence as compared with architecture, but it is a robust youth. It already knows definitely what it wants, and what it does not want. For guidance, it has a copious literature of first instance, scattered through various pamphlets and four score back volumes of periodicals. It is beginning to have a literature of last instance, in book form, like Duff-Brown in England and Bostwick in America; and even a formal literature about library buildings, Burgoyne and Champneys abroad, and now this volume here. It is very satisfactory to see how these three-thousand-miles-apart authorities agree. There are still differences of method to provide material for debate at the next international conference, but we are close enough together on principles, at least, to convince any doubting Thomas that there is a library science to govern library building.