Grandeur of libraries explored
The beauty of libraries extends beyond the multitude of books and other materials found on shelves — a notion made magnificently clear in a new coffee-table book focusing on architecture and interior spaces.
Cincinnati photographer Thomas R. Schiff has spent more than 20 years photographing U.S. libraries, which he considers “important expressions of our civilization, access to education and learning — and an expression of America’s great tradition of philanthropy.” For example, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Andrew Carnegie, the successful industrialist, built nearly 1,700 public libraries, including the Main Library in Downtown Columbus.
In “The Library Book,” Schiff’s photographs — mostly of library interiors — are made with a panoramic film camera, producing a 360-degree view of each library. His spectacular, color photos capture the majesty as well as the intimacy of structures designed to house books
and offer quiet places for reading, studying, contemplation and rest.
The first library in the book is Thomas Jefferson’s personal one at Monticello, which housed the third president’s more than 6,000 volumes before they became the founding collection of the Library of Congress. Washington, D.C., is, of course, home to that magnificent Renaissance-style library of more than 158 million items. Also in the nation’s capital is the Folger Shakespeare Library, which, with its dark wood shelves and ceiling, looks like it belongs at Harry Potter’s Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.
Schiff has captured the most famous American libraries, including the beautiful Morgan Library & Museum in New York, as well as some less-known ■ libraries. For example, the Lillian C. Schmitt Elementary School library in Columbus, Indiana, has a pitched roof and every room scaled for children’s use.
For central Ohio readers, the disappointment is that of the eight Ohio libraries featured, the Main Library is not one of them. Schiff does offer portraits of the Thompson Library at Ohio State University, several libraries in Cincinnati, the Paul Laurence Dunbar Library in Dayton, the Portsmouth Public Library and the Alden Library at Ohio University, his alma mater.
Both Schiff, in his afterword, and author and editor Alberto Manguel, in his introduction, discuss the changing nature of the public library in the technological 21st century. Not just a receptacle for books, the library is a hub of social gathering, computer use, job-hunting and even a respite for the homeless.
The grandeur of Schiff’s photographs, capturing the beauty and exquisite design of so many public libraries, makes one consider their role in American history. Before the American Revolution, libraries were private and reserved for the elite. Then, in 1790, Benjamin Franklin established the first public lending library.
Today, Manguel writes, the number of public libraries has been decreasing and many are being defunded.
“Without public libraries and without a conscious understanding of their role, a society of the written word is doomed to oblivion,” he writes. “A public library is the memory, the voice and the face of the society that houses it.”