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There isn't much in the way of sound in the Picton Reading Room. Such murmers and footfalls as there are seem to circle the walls, so that the walkways in the stacks, accessed via ornate metal stairways, are sounding boards, the noises seeming to make several circuits until their fade and die on wood and paper and bindings.

One member of staff directs seekers after knowledge to segments of the room and no one really raises a head to new arrivals, so there isn't much to see in the way of animation. But it smells like a library - warm air and old books and atoms of the odour of old coats and clothes worn by the readers. The room induces reverence for words and is a nice place to sit down. Spend the whole day looking at backnumbers of The New Yorker if you wish.

It rather brings to mind the British Library's old Reading Room, now an exhibition space in the courtyard of the BM. The Picton, though, is connected to the Central Library in Liverpool by a series of stairways, these done out in post-war municipal drabness - wooden and metal rails with green stone treads and risers. It's getting a tidy up at the moment.