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In the early days of Egypt, Greece, and Rome, libraries of papyrus and parchment rolls, stored on shelves, in pigeon-holes and in chests, were collected, at first by sovereigns, then by nobles, then by scholars. For centuries they occupied rooms in palaces and in temples. These rooms were only places of storage. Other rooms, or oftener colonnades, served for reading. The distinction between book rooms and reading rooms thus appeared at an early date.

The first mention of a separate library building is made in Egypt in the time of Ptolemy Philadelphus, the third century B.C. Two centuries before, Pisistratus, in Greece, had established a public library, whether or no in a house of its own is not noted. About 40 B.C., Asinius Pollio seems to have built the first library building in Rome. Augustus soon built two more, and thereafter public libraries and private library rooms abounded. In the fourth century A.D. there were twenty-eight “public libraries” in Rome. Although these were undoubtedly, while “public,” used mainly by scholars, having few of the functions which so highly diversify and differentiate modern public libraries, their buildings must have begun to assume some common arrangement which would tend to constitute a type. I am unable to reproduce, however, any clear picture of the architecture of these first buildings.