College and Research Libraries


BOOK REVIEWS 
Library Lighting. Keyes D. Metcalf. Wash-

ington, D.C.: Association of Research Li-
braries, 1970. 99p . $2.00. 
ARL' s difficulty in this project was in 

working with librarians, since there are not 
more than three or four who h ave an intel-
ligent comprehension of lighting, and none 
of them sat on Keyes Metcalf's advisory 
committee . The result is the calling to the 
bar for questioning a group of architects, 
engineers, and planning consultants, half 
of whom habitually perpetuate bad light-
ing on their clients. While the current fash-
ion is to hail the preeminent importance of 
quality in lighting, a large part of this 
group either do not believe what they say, 
or (more likely) do not know what quality 
is or how to attain it in illumination. 

No one in librarianship has searched 
longer or more assiduously for answers to 
good lighting than Keyes Metcalf, and ulti-
mately, no one is more baffied by the whole 
question. There is a kind of quiet despera-
tion in the methodology of this study, 
which poses questions to £fty-two archi-
tects , engineers, planning consultants, in-
terior designers , physicists , physicians, psy-
chologists, £seal officers, plant maintenance 
officers, and research scholars, as if in hope 
that a dragnet thrown out to sweep in all 
possible information would make a defini-
tive statement emerge. Once the answers 
were gathered, no one knew what to do 
with them, so a man disassociated with the 
project was asked to edit them. The ques-
tions, answers, and Keyes' comments on 
them form the bulk of this study. This pro-
cedure has resulted in the same four-line 
text confronting itself as two different an-
swers on opposing pages 44 and 45, and a 
total answer preserved for posterity which 
reads, "Perhaps." 

The questions posed the consultants are 
too multiple, asking too many different and 
unrelated things in the same breath, and 

Recent Publications 

are not skillfully worded to elicit clear, pin-
pointed answers. The answers, which range 
far beyond the repliers' expertise, contain 
sheerly ignorant and appalling misinforma-
tion (not edited out) , and the comments 
are summaries rather than demanding criti-
cal analyses. In this kind of a forum it is 
impossible just to stand aside and let every-
thing go; all must be w eighed, and a great 
part of the responses should not have been 
printed. This leaves us with a great deal of 
very bad advice about lighting undifferenti-
ated from the valid information that is pre-
sented. 

Keyes' introduction, conclusions, and rec-
ommendations contain some useful infor-
mation, especially about lighting costs, a 
subject on which he is preeminent. His 
long-held position in favor of low intensity, 
which was mitigated in his book on aca-
demic library planning, is back in the guise 
of advocating variations in intensity for the 
library building. If we have high intensity 
for defective vision and library work areas, 
70-80 percent of the reading areas can 
stay at 30-35 footcandles, which to me 
means "back to the cave." 

Some valid points emerge throughout the 
study that are worth emphasizing. ( 1) It 
is important to build mock-ups. ( 2) The 
high intensities urged by power companies 
are sheer fraud. ( 3) Polarized light is pri-
marily useful when paper is flat , not the 
characteristic position of material being 
read. ( 4) Few electrical engineers have 
sufficient knowledge of performance cri-
teria. (5) The program should state light-
ing requirements for each area in terms of 
intensity, quality, and atmosphere desired. 

Useful comments on the deteriorating ef-
fects of light on materials by a museum 
conservationist are on p.36- 37, and there 
is a good bibliography, but, on the whole, 
this is an extremely confusing study for 
anyone without an outstanding knowledge 
of lighting.-Ellsworth Mason, Hofstra 
University. · 

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