Evening star., 1946-09-18
Library Will Get
Floor and Half
In New BUILDING
State Unit
To Release Fifth
And Part of Fourth

The Public Library will gain a
foothold next week in its new build
ing, to which it has had only a
cornerstone claim for several years
because of the more pressing space
demands of Federal agencies.
Public Buildings Commissioner w.
E. Reynolds has arranged for re-
lease of the fifth floor and half of
the fourth floor in the structure in
the 400 block of Pennsylvania ave-
nue. NV, which, together with the
balance of the building has been
occupied by the State Department
Office of Inter American Affairs.
According to Mr.. Reynolds. it is
expected an additional quarter of
the fourth floor will become avail
able for library use within 80 days.
The State Department will continue
to use the basement, first three floors
and quarter of the fourth, he said.
More Moves Seen Unlikely.
Mr.. Reynolds added that he saw
mo prospect in the near future" of
moving the remaining State Depart
ment personnel to other quarters to
free more space for the library.
A State Department official said
there was no indication of planned
staff reductions within the activities
now in the library which would
enable them to give up space with
out finding compensatory room else
where.
The nbary never has had use of
the building. Construction was
halted early in the war because
priorities could not be justified for
the project. Later, arrangements
were made for it's completion with
the understanding that the Federal
Government would have use of it
during the emergency.
Was in PBA Pool.
Thereafter, although the corner
stone identified it as the library
building. it became part of the Pub
lie Buildings Administration Office
space fund, and square footage was
doled out to a Succession of war
time agencies.
Librarian Clara w. Herbert said
the space to be released next week
and that promised later would prove
invaluable" for certain storage and
processing functions but would not
be used for any direct service to the
public.
eve have been"faced with an acute
problem in attempting to find space
for storage of books and certain of
our administrative functions. she
said.
Fifth Floor for Storage.
Pointing out that the fifth floor
of the new building never was in
tended to be used as working space
for personnel and was taken up in
part by air conditioning and eleva-
tor machinery, Miss Herbert ex-
planned it would be used principally
for storage of books awaiting
These include volumes
bought for pronpt inclusion in the
collections, gifts to the library which
must be inspected and classified, and
books held for stocking of future
additions to the branch library sys-
tenn.
The remainder Of the space will
help meet desperate need" of
more working room for the extern
sive processing functions of the Ii
brary, such as cataloguing, she said.
Miss Herbert said she had no rea-
son to expect any further relief in
the near future, but was continuing
to hope some means could be found
TO turn over the entire building to
the library.
Seek Second Unit.
In the long-range program for
of the library, District
are looking toward construc-
ton of the second unit of the new
central building, adjoining the struc-
ture the library will begin using next
week.
The original plans for develop
ment of the area called for a four
unit project which would provide
quarters for the Board of Educa-
ton as we'll as the library. but these
were dropped and final decision has
not been made on work beyond
building of the second library unit.