There are no answers,
only cross-references
- Weiner's Law of Libraries

If the library is large enough, then it can place books on open shelves by traditional means, and allow readers to browse. However, a computerized library can be redesigned so that physical location on the shelf is irrelevant. A small library can save a great deal of room by abolishing the traditional concepts of shelving (and of browsing) and consider only the issue of shelving capacity.

Most books in any collection fall into certain groupings of heights, with a limited number of books which require non-standard heights. I built the first shelves to accommodate common, standard sizes. I could thus shelve large numbers of books efficiently, without wasting space for short books.

The bookshelves were attached to the cinderblock walls. Three L-brackets supported each 30” shelf. Plaster and cinderblock do not lend themselves to precise drilling, some shelves had a slight but usually imperceptible tilt. The books appeared to be straight when the shelf was filled, yet the tilt accommodated the inevitable differences among books which were ostensibly of the same height.

In each room, the first shelf was anchored near the top of the 9’ ceiling, with two to seven shelves going down the walls in each room of the house. In hallways, I did not want to impede easy passage and I wanted to maximize the space between walls, so I built two shelves, going down to the top of the door and continuing that height along the length of the wall. In the living room, I built down to a height of 40-50” from the floor. My living room furniture, desks, and tables easily fits beneath this height.

The vast number of shelves in the apartment thus take up no floor space, and minimal physical living space. Of course, all those books do sometimes cause people to feel that the walls are closing in on them - and they were indeed closer together - but this is a small price to pay for the immense addition in book stacks.

The compact feeling of a concentrated collection of books, may be overwhelming to some visitors who were less avid readers, but was comforting to me. As a side benefit the walls are in effect much thicker after adding the bookshelves. They provide greater insulation from outside variations in heat and cold, or from noises from neighbors.