Page:Essays in librarianship and bibliography.djvu/293

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ADDITIONAL SPACE IN LIBRARIES
273

should be brought into practical operation at the Museum as soon as possible. We ought, I think, to exemplify every useful device both in press construction and other departments of library work that we may have the good fortune to introduce, both for our own credit and for the advantage of other libraries which may be disposed to inquire into our methods. I hardly expect that the pivot-press will replace the sliding-press to any great extent at the Museum, because, as I have previously stated, although the designers of the larger portion of our library had not the most remote conception of the sliding-press, they could not have provided for it more effectively if they had foreseen and contemplated its introduction. But, when the need for procuring additional space by mechanical contrivance makes itself felt, as must inevitably be the case one day in all really important libraries, difficulties will be found in the introduction of the sliding-press which will not exist in the case of the pivot-press. Unless expressly so designed, libraries will seldom be provided, as the Museum was, with a grated ceiling from which the sliding-press can be suspended without more ado, and the construction of such a ceiling is a formidable and expensive piece of work. This difficulty may indeed be overcome by making the sliding-press run upon the ground, as at Bethnal Green and the basement of the Museum, but this throws the entire weight upon the floor, which, though unobjectionable on a basement, may be dangerous in upper storeys. I am inclined to believe, therefore, that the pivot-press