In the most comprehensive investigation of the Los Angeles Public Library's early history and architectural genesis ever undertaken, Kenneth Breisch chronicles the institution's first six decades, from its founding as a private library association in 1872 through the completion of the iconic Central Library building in 1933. During this time, the library evolved from an elite organisation ensconced in two rooms on the second floor of a downtown LA commercial block into one of the largest public library systems in the United States-with architect Bertram Grosvenor Goodhue's building, a beloved LA landmark, as its centrepiece. Goodhue developed a new style, fully integrating the building's sculptural and epigraphic program with its architectural forms to express a complex iconography. Working closely with sculptor Lee Oskar Lawrie and philosopher Hartley Burr Alexander, he created a great civic monument that, combined with the library's murals, embodies an overarching theme: the light of learning. "A building should read like a book, from its title entrance to its alley colophon," wrote Alexander-a narrative approach to design that serves as a key to understanding Goodhue's architectural gem.

Although new technologies appear poised to alter it, the library remains a powerful site for discovery, and its form is still determined by the geometry of the book and the architectural spaces devised to store and display it. American Libraries provides a history and panorama of these much-loved structures, inside and out, encompassing the small personal collection, the vast university library, and everything in between. Through 500 photographs and plans selected from the encyclopedic collections of the Library of Congress, Kenneth Breisch traces the development of libraries in the United States, from roots in such iconic examples as the British Library and Paris's Bibliotheque-Ste.-Genevieve to institutions imbued with their own American mythology. Starting with the private collections of wealthy merchants and landowners during the eighteenth century, the book looks at the Library of Congress, large and small public libraries, and the Carnegie libraries, and it ends with a glimpse of modern masterworks.