Let's Celebrate 100 Years of Library Stacks!

The reliable fireproof book stacks on three levels of glass flooring in The Masonic Library and Museum of Pennsylvania are on the brink of being a hundred years old. Dr. Glenys Waldman, the Librarian, said, "They have served well and will do so far into the future, sturdily holding about one third of The Masonic Library and Museum's prized book collection that is there for all to use."

For years after its founding in 1817, the library in the Masonic Temple in Philadelphia stored its books on shelves that ranged around whatever room was used for reading at that time, as one might do at home, arranged in whatever order pleased the owner -- alphabetically by author or title, by subject, by color, by size, or by year. With the exception of color, all of those arrangements are still useful, though large books are usually stored together to reduce the number of tall or wide spaces needed. Such arrangements will do well for a few hundred books, maybe up to a thousand, but there is a limit.

By 1900, there were nearly 12,000 books in the collection in The Masonic Library and Museum of Pennsylvania. Thus, the time came when the library ran out of floor space and wall space for rows of bookshelves. To solve the problem, stacks, that is rows, or ranks, of bookshelves in a multi-floored area, were built in small fireproof rooms off the main Museum hall.

It was a century ago that the solution to the space and security problems came to light, stemming from a suggestion recorded in the minutes of the Quarterly Communication of Dec. 3, 1902. Reporting on the success of the Washingtoniana Exhibit celebrating the 150th Anniversary of Bro. and Pres. George Washington's Initiation into Freemasonry, the Librarian, Bro. George P. Rupp, said that the interest in the exhibit and the "... collection forming the nucleus of our permanent Masonic Museum emphasizes the suggestion ... of permanent quarters for a proper display of what is already interesting and valuable..." The Committee on Temple told the Library that "... efforts will be made during the ensuing year to give proper accommodations to the proposed Museum." (Proceedings 1902, pp. 89-90.)

Little was said about such efforts in the December 1903 minutes. The Committee on Library noted that the number of visitors had decreased, but there was "reason to believe that the early completion of the proposed additions and alterations to the Library rooms will again greatly increase this number." (Proceedings 1903, pp.148-149.)

By the next December, progress had been made. The Committee on Library was "...glad to report the execution of the contracts ... by which steel book stacks will be placed in the fireproof rooms to the north of the main Museum Hall, which would become part Library reading room and part floor space for museum display cases." (Proceedings 1904, p. 159.) There is no mention of the monumental amount of work needed to build book stacks and to carry and lift materials in the small rooms between the present Museum and the Benjamin Franklin Room. It would take a lot more work until all of the books were arranged in their new home.

At the 1905 December Quarterly Communication, the Committee on Library reported that work for steel book stacks in the fireproof rooms had been completed, providing space for more than 25,000 volumes. "In addition, the Smoking and Conversation Room on the west of the Library (the present reading-room) had been fitted up with easy chairs and sofas (like a nineteenth century gentlemen's club)... The rearrangement of the Library Room proper (now the Museum) as a result of these additions and alterations is of an exceedingly satisfactory character. The ... walnut bookcases have been placed against the walls (where they remain, now filled with Museum objects), whilst on the south side of the room are placed tables for the purposes of reading and writing. On the north side the several walnut cases for the display of the Museum of Masonic relics, etc. have been placed." (Proceedings 1905, p. 79.)

"Fire-proof " always had been of paramount importance -- a need for which Grand Lodge was especially impressed because it had lost the beautiful first Chestnut Street Hall to fire in 1819. Then-state-of-the-art fireproof book stacks were installed with narrow steel stairs connecting the three levels, whose floors are huge, pale green, translucent, glass slabs (for light, as well as for fireproofing) set in steel frames. The shelves themselves are adjustable in increments of about one inch. This was the standard for 19th and early 20th-century book stacks, and many libraries still have them.

About the glass floors, Dr. Waldman said: "It's kind of like standing on ice."