Angus Snead Macdonald (1883-1961) was an American architect and businessman; from 1915 to 1952 the president of Snead and Company. This company, based in

Louisville, Kentucky Louisville ( , , ) is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Kentucky and the 28th most-populous city in the United States. Louisville is the historical seat and, since 2003, the nominal seat of Jefferson County, on the Indiana borde ...

, manufactured the cast iron

book stack In library science and architecture, a stack or bookstack (often referred to as a library building's ''stacks'') is a book storage area, as opposed to a reading area. More specifically, this term refers to a narrow-aisled, multilevel system ...

s found in

libraries A library is a collection of materials, books or media that are accessible for use and not just for display purposes. A library provides physical (hard copies) or digital access (soft copies) materials, and may be a physical location or a vir ...

all over the world in the beginning of the 20th century including the

Washington DC Public Library The District of Columbia Public Library (DCPL) is the public library system for the District of Columbia, in the United States. The system includes 26 individual libraries including Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library (the DCPL's central libra ...

and Harvard's

Widener Library The Harry Elkins Widener Memorial Library, housing some 3.5million books in its "vast and cavernous" stacks, is the centerpiece of the Harvard College Libraries (the libraries of Harvard's Faculty of Arts and Sciences) and, more broadly, of the ...

. After

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll, one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, ...

Angus Snead Macdonald would lead Snead and Company to revolutionize and standardize library book stacks.

Innovations in library shelving

With the success of the

public library A public library is a library that is accessible by the general public and is usually funded from public sources, such as taxes. It is operated by librarians and library paraprofessionals, who are also Civil service, civil servants. There are ...

movement of the mid-19th century came the rapid expansion of library construction in the United States. Macdonald took advantage of this expansion to revolutionize a number of library features. In 1915 Snead standardized the length of a book shelf to three feet in order to reduce cost and create interchangeable parts. The company also standardized the stack range spacing to four feet six inches. In 1930 the company developed a standardized lighting system that reflected light evenly to all parts of the stacks. In 1950, when developing for the

Midwest Inter-Library Center The Midwestern United States, also referred to as the Midwest or the American Midwest, is one of four census regions of the United States Census Bureau (also known as "Region 2"). It occupies the northern central part of the United States. I ...

, Snead and Company developed the first compact shelving units. These developments kept pace with Snead's ideal to provide libraries that "stressed flexibility, economy, informational comfort, and a reliance on artificial illumination and ventilation." Baumann, 1972, p. 223 The most important influences that Macdonald has had on libraries have been his architectural designs advocating open stacks in the 1930s, and his company’s modular architecture in the 1950s. The Snead Company's production of public and academic libraries in the beginning of the 20th century provided the framework for open stack libraries. The company's focus on providing book stacks that could also be modified to accommodate card catalogues or reading spaces helped the expanding use of public libraries following

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

. The concept of modular libraries not only signaled the financial demise of Snead and Company, but also the birth of the modern library form. Composed of nine by nine by eight foot sections or "modules", this concept, combined with the production of light-weight, adjustable shelving, revolutionized library planning. Macdonald and the company he headed were integral in the move of the American library system from one of closed, structural stacks, to open stacks that emphasize adjustability which are still in use today.

References

External links

Litigation between Angus Snead Macdonald Corporation and Virginia Metal Products Corporation
{{DEFAULTSORT:Macdonald, Angus Snead American manufacturing businesspeople 1961 deaths 1883 births

Innovations in library shelving

References

Further reading

External links