ABSTRACT
From the middle of the nineteenth to the early twentieth century, the influence of the French Beaux-Arts tradition in architecture, with its classical influences, was preeminent in the development of the American public library. In response, early Beaux-Arts libraries introduced a new system of remote book storage, with the collection housed in a separate stack room. Architecturally, libraries from this era typically incorporated a recurring Beaux-Arts theme characterized as a “pathway to enlightenment”, played out in a controlled entry and arrival sequence that culminated in the main reading room as the place of intellectual fulfillment. The Bibliotheque Ste. Genevieve in Paris, by Henri Labrouste from 1850, was the first great classical Beaux-Arts library of the era, and the first library to incorporate remote stacks for auxiliary storage of books and archives, separate from the primary collection housed in the main reading room.
