Elementary is a major flaw, not a free flaw. As such if you only take the elementary flaw and none others then you have a size-3 lab, which is 100 sq ft.
(it is listed as a major outfitting flaw).
Which goes to the point of the assertion in apprentices that a lab has to be 500 sqft per project (note there is no problem with an apprentice being in the lab as an assistant, just running their own project according to apprentices). However in that same 500 sq ft I could set up 5 elementary labs so it simply does not track as accurate in all cases. Once again different authors have written different rules that conflict with each other, must be Monday.
Very well, set them up as multiple labs...
Sure, if I wanted to spend years setting up all the labs. My point is that the rule about square footage is bogus according to the rules in covenants, and also not the question I asked about, which is about crossing over rules for labs and workshops.
Let me throw this into your equations: if I add spacious to my lab as design, it becomes 1000 sq ft. So if I have 20 projects going on there how many times would it require the shared lab flaw by your understanding of the 500 sqft rule? 10 time? 18 times? 19 times? And what does it matter for copying texts?
Heck Elementary even states in the description "it might be suitable for an extremely confined space" and you have been here telling me it does not mean what it clearly means, and telling me I am not aware of how the rules work. For what I'm doing I'd rather take the penalties to GQ and safety because neither of those have any effect on copying or writing texts, and might actually dissuade mages from taking over the book copying operation to try and develop spells from lab texts.
What I'm trying to do is simple- establish a book copying operation to generate income either silver (for mundane books) or vis (for arcane books), and using this resource to help expand the library.
You've ignored my suggestion about workshops. I think it fits better. Scribes, binders and illuminators are not magi. Don't think the bonuses are appropriate.
Given the number of people in other threads who have weighed in on the other side of that opinion, and my own reading of the RAW, yes I have ignored that particular opinon.
However assessing the extra people who are not directly involved in a given project with the person 'virtue' would make sense. So if you have an apprentice running another project and not assisting you they would count as simply a person rather than needing their own flaw...
Other threads? That health bonus/hospital thread? Keep in mind, I posited that it was cheaper and easier to do it with spells than to construct a hermetic lab.
The person virtue is if they are a servant in the lab. An apprentice counts as the Assistant virtue if used in your projects. If the magus and apprentice are working on two different things, then it is a Shared Lab. You're walking a slipper slope, which I knew when this thread started out. You're looking for justification to do what you want. So, go ahead and do it, if this is in a saga where you're the SG, plunk it down somewhere else in the world and see the effects of it. The idea of having an 800 square foot area created as a massive lab, shared by 16 professionals not doing hermetic magic and producing a finished product seems to be a bit counter to the game. It may be entirely possible that you've found an exploit in the RAW. I'm unconvinced. Take it a step further and see what it does to the saga, indeed what it would have done to the Order as a whole, prior to the particular point of time in your saga.
What makes this an interesting story? Is the massive publication of books here at this covenant now going to create new and interesting problems for them to deal with? Is it going to be kept secret as to how they've accomplished this? Durenmar, with an even larger supply of books could do the same thing, and drive you and your covenant effectively out of business.
Under the person virtue it states "Do not count the owner or full time lab assistants such as apprentices. A full-time trained mundane assistant is better represented by the Servent Virtue" so once again your advice is in direct contradiction to the rules you purport to be representing.
However it appears you made an a priori assumption about what was "really" going on here and have not been offering advice so much as hostility. This covenant is located in Hibernia, so Deurenmar is a bit of a ways away, and frankly given the poor publication capabilities of the middle ages I'm pretty sure there is plenty of market for both, if Deurenmar were to decide to copy the business. The balancing flaw to the income (earned vis will be handled separately and be used to improve the library, so it is really jus about book exchanges there with vis on the books as an intermediary valuation) is going to be the itinerants flaw as the increase in cash flow attracts people looking for work and/or trade. But I am trying to do more with this, and make it more interesting than simply a tradeoff of virtues and flaws, and the possibility of increasing book quality through workshops has intrigued me, and if I can combine workshops with labs - which is what I asked about not all your BS about 500 sqft, which doesn't matter due to the nature of the lab, then it can be a much more effective way to boost book quality as well as speed production, and becomes a story issue as other magi or covenants start to wonder how we are producing such power books and especially tracti (since a +3 workshop quality bonus would life a tractus at quality 14 to quality 17, before adding any resonant material bonuses)
It's pretty obvious you're determined to go down this path. The fact that you're taking the lack of anyone else commenting on this thread as an implicit approval though is telling. You were determined to make this work, and you're finding any reason to make it work, and being rather defensive in this. I'm not being hostile to you. I am hostile to the idea, indeed any idea, that has magi creating labs for purposes other than being labs to be used by them or other magi. I'm not representing rules, and I'm not taking a rigorous approach to the discussion, because I find the entire premise to be flawed.
If you really want to get personal- I asked this question and nobody has answered the question I asked. one person has been throwing a fit about it and proving himself a jackass while repeatedly misstating rules and expecting me to accept him as an "expert" despite this fact. At this point my opinion f you is so low that your opposition to a concept is to me a vote in favor of it. The rules specifically indicate that creating labs for the purpose of working exclusively with text is allowed, and if you are opposed to it then that is your own arrogance and ignorance, not RAW. The rules specifically state text work as one of the categories which a lab can be elementary (i.e. specifically dedicate to. If you are arguing from your feeling that the rules are wrong in covenants when it comes to lab design please do not take offense when I find flaw with the rule (singular) presented in apprentices regarding shared labs, especially when that rule is, as I have noted repeatedly, irrelevant to the process I am discussing.
No, you started this off on one point and then took a hard right towards your hidden agenda.
I am not presenting myself as an expert, I never stated it, and I never suggested that I should be seen as an expert. This is an assumption you've taken upon yourself. I make mistakes with the RAW all the time. Ars is convoluted and complicated. What I'm interested in is what makes the story interesting. If we're getting personal, as you seem to be, then, I don't think what you present mechanically is interesting. How you intend to use it, could be.
Well, that much is obvious.
There is an implied presumption that the user of a Hermetic Lab (hereafter lab) is a magus, that is Gifted, not a mundane. I'll stretch it out to a Failed Apprentice, as they once had the Gift, and could still even perhaps distill vis, but everything that happens in the lab should be under the auspices of of a Gifted individual. I find it inconclusive that benefits of a lab can accrue to others in the lab without the magus at least being present and using the lab.
You ask me to not take offense, after you spewed vulgarity and vitriol? That's funny. 
If you read the Text Specialization on pg 112 of Covenants it says it give a bonus of +1 to scribe for writing books or Lab text. There is no other bonus that does not involve Lab texts. It does sound like you want a Workshop but even in the Lab specialties it falls under Items which is for making magic or investigating magic items.
A Workshop form Citys&Guilds gets you closer but still would not quite fit the entire book making process into one roof. Workshops give a bonus for Craft skills. So if you have a Illuminator's workshop it might have the specialty of magical text. But that does not help the binders because that is a different craft with their own workshop.
on p. 112 of covenants it states that "for every 3 points of this specialization the labs user may add +1 to her profession:scribe score whenever copying Lab Texts or books, or +1 to language for writing books. with a text bonus of +15 this gives +5to scribe. What I want, but am uncertain of, is making something that is both a workshop and a lab, or if you prefer to think of it this way, a workshop with magical resonances...
As long as you are working with Lab Texts or copying books. There is no bonus given for doing something other than writing books or lab text.
Your concept does not work in the context of Hermetic Lab. Even a light reading of the Lab rules in Covenants shows that a Hermetic lab is set up by a single person to be controlled and used by a single person. Sure you could take the free servant virtue 12 times. It goes totally against the spirit of the rules but that is up to you and your troupe. I could take the free virtue of guard 10,000 times and then try to take over the local barony this that kind of logic. Even then the servant virtue says they are just kind of helping. not that they are workmen doing their own thing. Everything in a Magus' lab is orchestrated by the magus. That is why you need Leadership to have multiple people help you. Just looking at ArM pg103 shows that you need leadership of 12 to have 12 people help you. If everyone is independent then you get the shared lab flaw. which should be for each person sharing the lab.
Again. Totally up yo your troupe but if I were your SG I would not allow it as it has nothing to do with what a Hermetic lab is meant to do.
Where the rules fall over is that the shared lab mechanics make the (fairly reasonable) assumption that you are using a lab to generate a lab total.
If you're not generating a lab total, then clearly a penalty to GC and to safety becomes a moot issue.
If it were my saga, I would house-rule that the -GC penalty for shared labs also applies to bonuses used to generate values that are not lab totals, such as teaching bonuses or scribing bonuses. This is because the benefits of a lab strongly implies one person using it to get that benefit, not stuffing 20 people into the lab and sidestepping the over-crowding issue because the penalty for over-crowding doesn't apply to the specific activity you intend to undertake.
So with 20 people stuffed into one lab, that'd be a -40 penalty to the texts total, resulting in a net -25 texts penalty, which in turn is a -8 penalty to prof:scribe or language of the people all trying to fight over the same supplies and desk space.
However, if all those people were directly assisting with the work as a team, I'd a) limit the number of assistants to the leaders leadership score, and b) allow them to combine their professional abilities together to mass-produce books.
Mass-production of books will lead to stories; from assistants thieving works and selling them on the cheap to other covenants becoming envious to mundane groups such as lords or bishops getting hold of books and the subsequent potential for interference charges.
And the story potential if the covenant decides to mass-produce texts on Parma Magica could well be a saga-ender.
Look at it this way for a moment- in one season one person could construct a workshop, or if they have magic theory 3+, an elementary lab which can do one part of what a lab does- in this case copying texts. from there a workshop can be improved with innovation through investing labor points, a lab can be improved by adding virtues, refinement etc.
For copying texts (not bookbinding or illustration, which was never a part of this issue), either of these could in theory apply. In fact the person leading this project could train 20 people in magic theory up to level 3 in 2 seasons, so the number of people in the lab is really not the major point here- the question I am trying to get to is whether bonuses for making a workshop and for improving a lab can apply at the same time, because after the first season whether it is a workshop or an elementary lab seems to me a difference in semantics...
I see the difference as follows:
A lab is a space designed primarily to allow a single person to engage in a task. Refinement, virtues, etc. are all about improving that one person's capability.
A workshop is a space designed to allow a group of people to engage in a task. Improvements are about improving the group's output.
This is why I wouldn't allow a magus to easily turn a lab into a workshop. A lab with the feature 'desk' has a desk, kitted out with everything a single person could want to scribe like a demon. A scribes workshop, however, has multiple desks - unless the workshop is very small and only suitable for one person. In which case... yes, it's a difference of semantics.
So on reflection: I would not allow assistants to 'assist' on work that isn't specifically covered as part of lab-work in a lab. Basically: if you want a room where a big group of people practice a craft in unison, you're talking about a workshop. A lab is not a workshop, even if it shares some features of one.
So hypothetically, if one person were working in the lab with assistants covered by the leadership skill as per the rules and had magic theory but no gift and wanted to add workshop improvements on top of lab bonuses, would that be something you would see as working, or not working? (a second workshop for more grunt level work or multiple labs are certainly a possibility)
So why would you add workshop bonuses to a lab other than to try to max out munchkinism? They are two separate things. Labs exist to generate a lab total. Workshops exist to generate items. do you want a lab total or items? If items than make a workshop.
labs also exist to generate items- in this case books but they can also generate enchanted items.
The reason is simple- a bonus from a workshop adds to workshop total, not skill
a bonus from the lab adds to skill
I want to do both, because it allows me to make not only more items (which the workshop bonus does not do) but boost the quality of these items- which also comes back to the concept of using a workshop total in scribe to boost the quality of a text- for example if I have an extraordinary item by craft skill with +3 bonus, does that add +3 to the quality of the text? I believe it should, and think that point at least was covered earlier in the text. Then if I have a skill of 7 in scribe, and have a table with texts+15, that gives me an effective 12 in scribe, which with apprentices and refinements to boost the workshop total can give me a +4 bonus from item quality.
So the real answer is that I want to produce extraordinary books. After all a tractus with a quality of 18 is something that would be very valuable...