"The exterior of the lower story of the building is Roman Doric, the second story Roman Ionic, and the third Italian. The Library and an adjoining apartment, appropriated to the Museum, are on the ground floor; and below are spacious vaults, which are devoted to trade purposes, and from which a considerable annual revenue is expected to be derived. Over the principal entrance is a well executed head of Homer, and in the entrance-hall which has a tesselated pavement, are four scagliola columns with Corinthian capitals. The Museum-room is 54 feet in length and 26 feet wide, and the Library is 44 feet long and 33 feet wide. A broad and handsome stone staircase conducts the visitor to the second floor, on which is a lecture-room of the same dimensions as the Library, and two apartments appropriated to the Literary Institution, which are collectively of the same size as the Museum beneath. On the third floor are two large rooms for the School of Art, with domed roofs and ample skylights, and four smaller apartments for classes are also provided." A reproduction of a recent photograph of the building, showing to the left a portion of the Reading Room added in 1907, faces page 56. The Library proper at first consisted of one room, as stated above, which combined a news and reading room, and reference and lending departments. Books were not issued from the lending department until January 1st, 1858, when the books in two classes, "General Literature" and "Voyages and Travels" were ready for circulation. Regarding rules for the loan of these books, the Committee provisionally adopted those of the Sheffield Free Library. By July of the same year all the books were available for borrowing, and the circulation "reached 500 volumes, always on loan, every volume being returned or renewed within a week." When the first report was published in August, 1858, there were 3,354 volumes in the Library, of which 2,468 volumes were presented, arranged in ten classes: A, General Literature, 586 vols.; B, Geography, Voyages and Travels, 560 vols.; C, Dramatists, Poets, and Novelists, 454 vols.; D, History and Biography, 383 vols.; E, Bohn's Libraries, 318 vols.; F, Bonn's Libraries and Cabinet Cyclopaedia, 315 vols.; G, Natural History and Sciences, 244 vols.; H, Metaphysics, Logic and Religion, 306 vols.; I, Dictionaries, Cyclopaedias, Reviews, 88 vols.; [J] Magazines, 100 vols. All the books were apparently available either for reading at the library or for home-reading. In 1858 a record of issues was kept which showed that during the first half year 5,225 volumes were circulated "to nearly 700 persons," and the total issue of books "for perusal" in the reading room was 10,066 "issued to a large number of citizens."