ABSTRACT
This chapter seeks to approach a more precise evaluation of how architectural agendas were orchestrated on behalf of a clientele that were not in fact, clients, but designated beneficiaries. The estimation of the performance of public light is divided in order to be viewed from two perspectives; that of the librarian and that of the public customers. At the turn of the twentieth century, American public libraries accelerated progress in operational terms in delivering open access. Newspaper reading rooms offered the potential for men to become up to date with current affairs, to share a degree of information that might not otherwise have been affordable or accessible to them. At Wednesbury, in 1909-10 averages of 314 visitors per day were recorded to the lending library, only 50 to the reference room but 700 to the newsroom. The requirement for fixed furniture in libraries, limited by anthropomorphic dimensions encouraged writers to extrapolate proportional guidance from those dimensions.
