The nine great men commemorated by the busts across the portico of the front entrance pavilion at the second-story level are each silhouetted in front of a round window. They were selected by Librarian Ainsworth Rand Spofford and are, from left to right as you stand in front of the building: Demosthenes, Emerson, Irving, Goethe, Franklin, Macaulay, Hawthorne, Scott and Dante. They were carved by Herbert Adams, Jonathan Scott Hartley and Frederick W. Ruckstull.