Jasper County Democrat, Volume 1, Number 43, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 February 1899 — APPLIANCE FOR LIBRARIES. [ARTICLE]

APPLIANCE FOR LIBRARIES.

Something New Adopted by Public Library of Chicago. The Chicago public library boasts not only the mo6t modern of steel stacks, but the delivery of the books and their transfer from one part of the building to the other is accomplished by a most ingenious system of electric dumb waiters. If these waiters merely ascended in a vertical direction they would ecarcely attract attention; but the fact that they go round corners and upstairs; through storage rooms on different floors, and through windows to different wings of the building, makes them very interesting. The vertical elevators are arranged so that a pointer placed at any particular floor on a dial will cause th 6 electric dumb waiter noiselessly to ascend to that point. The second carrier is for the purpose of conveying all the books that are collected in the substations of the city from the stock rooms, where they are collected, to the lower delivery room, from which pint they are again distributed. It i« estimated that this apparatus will handle 10,000 to 12,000 books per day. Previously it was necessary to haul the hooks about the building in boxeg. ■ r;