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Beport on Projected Library Buildings. The following report bears upon three points —the requirements of the Library, the defects of the proposed building, and the alterations suggested. I. Requirements. —(l.) The Library consists of over 26,000 volumes ; it augments at the rate of 1,400 volumes a year ; in fifteen years more, at the same rate of increase, it will have augmented by 21,000 volumes ; so that by tile end of the century it will contain close upon 50,000 volumes. But as it is probable that the rate of increase will •quicken with the growing population and wealth of the colony, accommodation ought to be provided for at least 60,000 volumes. (2.) The Library will not stop growing, unless the colony stops growing, in the year 1900. A site ought therefore to be chosen that will leave room for extension. The tennis-ground meets that condition. As the projected building is to be lit from the roof, a wing could be adjoined, or the building could be extended in the direction of its length, so as to contain 50,000 additional volumes. There would thus be prospective accommodation for 110,000 volumes—& number that will almost certainly be attained in forty years. (8.) There ought to be suitable offices for the performance of the routine work of the Library, for the convenience of visitors and students, for the storing of stationery, periodicals, and pamphlets, and for the display of maps. 11. How do the plans before the Committee meet these requirements ? (1.) The building there outlined consists of a single hall measuring 67ft. by 42ft., yielding 2,814 sq. ft. The existing Library buildings consist of five rooms—the central room, with 1,008 sq. ft.; the smoking-room, with 1,114 sq. ft.; the entrance-room, with 968 sq. ft.; the reference-room, with 540 ft. ; and the small reference- or Committeeroom, with 368 ft. : amounting altogether to 4,028 ft. Thus the new library building will contain 1,214 ft. less than the old, which is insufficient for present needs, and will be embarrassed to furnish space for the books ordered within the last three months. ■ * (2.) The plan is further defective in providing no accommodation for the carrying-on of the Library-work. There is no room for students or visitors, and the unpacking of cases, the storing of unbound publications, and the routine business generally, would have to be done elsewhere. The inconvenience of such an arrangement need not be enlarged upon. All the work connected with a library ought to be done within the walls of the library. Even the binding might well bo,'and in most large libraries now is, done inside the buildings, and if the plans could be altered to include a bindery, the vexatious delays in the receipt of new books, and the sending-out of defective or wrongly-lettered volumes, would be precluded. This, however, is not at present proposed. 111. Suggested alterations. —(1.) More space is then needed, and more suitable accommodation. The space can be provided in two ways. If the corridor were widened by sft. and shelved, it would house between 2,000 and 3,000 volumes of newspapers on one side and (say) twice as many volumes of official publications on the other. On a rough estimate 7,000 volumes could be placed in the corridor if widened and shelved. This leaves over 50,000 volumes to bo accommodated, if it be assumed that space (not necessarily shelving) is to be provided for 60,000 volumes. The projected hall is estimated to contain C,OOOft. of shelving. If a foot of shelving will hold nine volumes on an average —eight demy and ten crown octavos —the hall would afford room for 54,000 volumes, the number required. Two deductions have, however, to be made, (a.) If an entrance-room is cut off from the hall, and set apart for the purposes to which the present entrance-room is devoted, the amount of space available for shelving will be reduced by 1,000 sq. ft., and the number of books that can be shelved by perhaps 10,000. (b.) In the course of time—of no distant time—the corridor will get stocked, and as the tall and bulky volumes of newspapers and official publications will then have to be accommodated in the main building, the possible amount of shelving will be proportionately reduced. It might therefore not be safe to assume that the projected hall will house more than 40,000 volumes, if as many ; which would still leave us with space to be sought. Additional space might be gained by broadening, by lengthening, or by heightening the hall, or by raising the corridor. If the breadth of the hall were enlarged by 10ft., thus making it 52ft., as was proposed in 1876, instead of only 42ft. as was proposed last session, space would be provided for I,oooft. more of shelving, with accommodation for from 6,000 to 9,000 volumes, according to size. (2.) The plan now before the Committee has the further defect that the hall stands undivided, not partitioned off into rooms. One such division will, at all events, be requisite. A room where students and visitors may read with comfort, and yet be shut off from the rest of the Library, is indispensable. A high partition is not, however, necessary : a low iron screen would answer the purpose. It is also a question whether the portion of the Library containing the works which belong to the Reference Department ought not to be similarly divided off from the main building. Perhaps stamped words on the outside or a, printed slip on the inside of volumes belonging to this department, to the effect that they are not to be taken out of the Library, would suffice. (3.) The accommodation for the staff now only remains to be described : (a.) It will perhaps be admitted that a room for the sole use of the Librarian is not a luxury. Such a room would be placed most conveniently at the end of the corridor, and at the entrance to the main building. (6.) Above it, on a second storey, might be built a room for the display of maps, some fifty of which now lie almost inaccessible in the store-room, (c.) On the left hand just opposite would be a room for unpacking, stamping, and registering new books, and perhaps for filing newspapers. (d.) Overhead of it should be a store-room for stationery, unfiled newspapers, pamphlets, &c. And (c) joining it with the map-room might be a Committee-room, where also could be placed the valuable and rare book's that now find a home in the smaller reference-room. General Assembly Library, 23rd January, 1886. J. Collier. This report was considered on the 25th June, 1886, by the General Business Sub-Committee, and on the motion of Mr. Montgomery " it was agreed to recommend that the sum of £5,000 be placed on the estimates to provide Library Buildings, say 90ft. by 52ft., containing a librarian's room, and a registering or unpacking room, with corridor 15ft. wide; to be heated with hot air and patent stoves, with the electric light, shelving and all complete; and the building to be lit from the roof." The Sub-Committee's recommendation was read at a meeting of the Joint Library Committee on the sth July, when a series of resolutions was passed. It had been, perhaps incautiously, urged as an .argument for the erection of a substantial building as a Parliamentary Library that such a library might justly be considered a national library. This was strongly objected to on the grounds that it was a perversion or an extension of the objects with which the Library was founded, that it would tend to withdraw the control of the Library from the Assembly, and (perhaps most of all) that it was located in Wellington, when Auckland, Christchurch, and Dunedin had, to say the least, equal claims to be the seat of such an institution. It was accordingly resolved "that the Library proposed to be erected shall be considered a part of Parliament Buildings." By a majority of ten to one the tennis-ground was selected for the site. The Government was recommended to put £5,000 on the estimates. The Chairman and Mr. Lake were to consult with Mr. Beatson on his plans (which he explained to the Committee) and report. The referring of the plans to a Sub-Committee for further examination arose out of a feeling of dissatisfaction with the insufficient securities against fire provided by the new building. According to Mr. Lake, then member for Waipa, it united all the requisites of failure. Aid in the designing of new plans was derived from a pamphlet on the construction of library buildings by a librarian