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books. Spread over three buildings, it contains the largest phonograph record collection in the world, the largest collection of motion pictures, maps, globes, charts. Civil War photographs, Stradivari violins and the world’s greatest multi-media encyclopedia.
The international flavor of the Library is manifested by the fact that three-fourths of the books and a large proportion of other materials are in languages other than English. This is no accident, nor is it an extravagance for it expresses the special character of our nation - what Franklin D. Roosevelt called “a Nation of immigrants.”
The first truly public library in America was founded by Benjamin Franklin who started a brand new concept of a subscription library in 1731. The second was chartered by the General Assembly in Alexandria, Va., in 1799. By these standards, our library in Washington, Va., is still in swaddling clothes, having been founded in 1963.
The building that houses the Rappahannock Library, built in 1856, is a converted church. It is a gem of a building. The architecture is pure Georgian, but badly in need of repair and refurbishing. As is well known, Georgian architecture was heavily influenced by Andrea Palladio, an Italian Renaissance architect who specialized in building country houses along the Veneto, the Italian mainland west of Venice.
Many of the characteristics of the Palladian villa appear in the design of our library in Rappahannock County: The elevation of the main block of the building so that you are looking up at the entrance; the usual full portico with the four columns is absent, but the sketch in the library letterhead certainly suggests its possibility; the triangular pediment similar to a Roman temple (where Palladio got the idea in the first place) is characteristic of all Palladian villas.
As you enter the building, the main room is two floors in height, giving you the feeling of great space and light, heightened by cathedral-like windows on both sides. Thomas Jefferson was much taken with this type of architecture, and his home in Monticello is proof that he carried Palladio’s ideas high in the design and building of this magnificent structure.
The Rappahannock Library has recently considered, in meetings of the Trustees and Friends, enlarging the present building to accommodate the book explosion. The library has been the recipient of a plot of land across the street, the magnanimous gift of Mrs. Byrd Jones. A new building here would accommodate a reading room, a meeting place for conferences and house magazines and periodicals, and also make way for books which should be relegated to the dust bin. 'fhis would preserve the present building in its pristine state - a monument to beauty and history.
BERNARD E. NUNEZ
Castleton
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