David R. Moore II and Eric C. Shoaf. Planning Optimal Library Spaces: Principles, Processes, and Practices. Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield, 2018. 196p. Hardback, $85.00 (ISBN: 978-1-5381-0940-3).

Abstract

There are few aspects of libraries that create more pride and also more problems than renovating a library or building a new one. There is pride in knowing that you will have this new facility with all new furniture. It will be bright and inviting. But to get from A to B, there will be many headaches as decision after decision will have to be made. One hopes that, once the work is all done, the pride will be there without any issues of design having trumped function or people wondering about why X was placed in spot Y. To aid in making the transition from old, cold, leaky, and out of date to shiny, new, efficient, and inviting, David Moore II and Eric Shoaf have teamed up to give us Planning Optimal Library Spaces: Principles, Processes, and Practices . Moore is an architect whose thirty-year career has focused entirely on libraries, and Shoaf, the Dean of the Library at Queens University in Charlotte, NC, is a thirty-year veteran of academic libraries with extensive involvement in library renovation and building projects at multiple institutions.