Changes in the Library.

Dr. Justin Winsor and Mr. E. W. Hooper, who compose the committee in charge of the alterations in Gore Hall, have decided to accept the plans submitted by Shepley, Rutan & Coolidge, architects. Work upon the proposed changes will be begun immediately after the close of the college year.

By building a floor fourteen feet above the present one, the reading room will be divided into two stories, the lower of which will be converted into a stack, entirely fire-proof, which will accommodate 150,000 volumes. The upper story will be fitted up as a new reading room with more airy alcoves, better tables, and easy chairs. Between the present ceiling and the roof there is a vacant space of fifteen feet. This ceiling will be torn down, so that the new room will be at least as high as the old. The lighting, too, will be greatly improved, as the old ground glass will be taken out and larger panes of plate glass substituted. At night the reading room will be open and illuminated by incandescent electric lights. A stair case will lead up through the new stack to the reading room from the left hand fly door at the entrance of the present reading room. At the landing a door will be cut into the art room which will be cleared out and used for reading too.

The card catalogue cases of the delivery room will be moved back under the balcony on the left of the entrance. The additional space will prevent persons waiting at the desk for books from colliding with those who are looking through the catalogue case.

The library increases at an average rate of 10,000 volumes a year. Obviously with the present great accumulation of unstacked books, the new space will soon be consumed. When this comes about, the proposed plan is to turn the whole of what is now the reading room, as well as the empty space between the ceiling and the roof, into a stack. By this change 500,000 additional volumes in all could be put away. The library at present contains about 400,000 volumes, so it would have to more than double before it could fill up the extra space.