Today I visited the newly renovated library reading room at the Wisconsin Historical Society in Madison. After its renovation I believe that it is one of the five most beautiful reading rooms in America. Others in my opinion include the main reading room in the Thomas Jefferson Building of the Library of Congress, the main reading room of the New York Public Library's Research Division, and Bates Hall of the Boston Public Library. I invite you to nominate one or more libraries to complete or include in the top five most beautiful library reading rooms. When the American Library Association met in Waukesha in 1901, conference attendees came to Madison to visit the newly completed building of the Wisconsin Historical Society and, "There was but one opinion of the entire party in regard to the beauty and arrangement of the building, and that was satisfactory to the highest degree."
3 comments:
Gorgeous! Hope to visit the Wisconsin Historical Society one day, as well as the other reading rooms you mentioned. Though I have done research in the NYPL, I'd like to go back there, too, and see more. Enjoyed the photos!
Walter Library at the University of Minnesota recently went under renovation and is quite beautiful. Plus you can go on an owl hunt!
http://sciweb.lib.umn.edu/walter/renovation.pdf
Please add to your list of nominations for the Five Most Beautiful Reading Rooms the South Caroliniana Library at the University of South Carolina, Columbia SC. Constructed in 1840, the South Caroliniana Library is the first free-standing academic library in the United States. The Reading Room itself is a Robert Mills design and a copy of Bullfinch's First Library of Congress, which burned in 1859. (Mills and Bullfinch were apprentices together under Latrobe and shared designs.) The Library has continuously served the South Carolina academic community as well as academics worldwide for 170 years. Please visit our website at http://www.sc.edu/library/socar/index.html .
Thank you for your attention to and consideration of this nomination.scryi
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