I have been working on converting my two car garage into a library.
I always wanted my own reading room, from when I was a kid.
I would ride my bike to the library every weekend, just to hang out in the cool and the quiet, reading books and getting lost in the worlds they created. I wanted to recreate that magic in my home, so I took down the garage doors and put in a new wall. I added new floors, and redid the ceiling. After adding all the shelves and the books it looked like a reading room, but it didn’t feel like one. I needed better air quality, and a superior cooling system, if I really wanted to capture the feel of a public library. I did some research, and learned that the reason libraries are kept so cold and dry is that the climate control is used for the benefit of the books, not the people reading them. Books have specific climate control conditions they need to stay in optimum condition for the longest amount of time. Humidity and books do not get along, so the air is run through dehumidifiers and made so dry to keep the books from accumulating moisture. The very cold temps you find in most libraries are also done for the lowering of humidity levels, because without the moisture in the air there is a little more wiggle room in terms of temperature. I decided that based on the size of my library I will need two dehumidifiers and a portable air conditioning unit.