Friday, September 5, 2008

Burton Barr Central Library Part 3


The inside of the library is very modern covering 280,000 square feet of space accommodating over a million volumes of books. As you can see from the photo, the book topics in each section are displayed in neon lights at the end of the row of shelves. The fifth floor of the library is the Great Reading Room which is the largest reading room in North America even bigger than the New York Public Library (not as charming, though) or the Library of Congress.
Tomorrow: one more picture from the Library.

5 comments:

Mary Stebbins Taitt said...

WOW! What a beautiful--and impressive--library!

Laurie Allee said...

Okay... I would so love to explore this place! (If I could get past that stunning atrium and actually go to the books..)

I can honestly say I've never seen neon on a library. What a whimsical treatment of a usually serious place. Is it known for housing any special collections?

Sharon said...

Laurie, there is a rare book room in the library that houses a 4,000 year old Babylonian tablet among other rare books. There is also an Arizona room filled with Arizona and southwestern history reference materials.

Rob said...

That a lot of books, impressive! i like the lighting choice...literally. (it's an enginnering thing). However, I'm not so sure about the neon replacing the Dewey Decimal System. I liked Dewey's system.

Laurie Allee said...

Wow, Sharon. A rare book collection, too. What a treasure for the community.

Dusty -- you know the Dewey system? Impressive!