September 2000
Newsletter #35
 

Faculty Essential to Successful Storage Project

Dick Ross Leaves Library

Gelardin New Media Center
Center Funded

Reserve Changes to Improve Service

Library Open 24 Hours, 5 Days a Week

60 CD-ROMs Available from Faculty Offices

Improved Access to Databases Off-Campus

Much More Than a Web of Science

E-Books Arrive with NetLibrary

Tax Questions Answered

New Old Books

Contributors

Faculty Essential to Successful Storage Project

Nearly a year ago, we asked for your help in identifying and selecting low-use Library materials that could be moved to an off-campus storage facility. Today, I want to express my appreciation for your assistance in the success of the storage project. Faculty and librarians reviewed over 300,000 storage candidates and selected for storage more than 162,000 volumes from the Lauinger Library and the Blommer Science Library. Considered for storage were books published between 1859 and 1969 (with a few exceptions) that have not circulated since 1993. Many are duplicate copies or variant editions of titles remaining on campus. The last shipment was delivered to the storage facility on August 25.

The storage project was necessary because the Library no longer had the shelf space to accommodate the 30,000-plus volumes added annually. Adding any more shelves beyond the thousands installed over the past eight years would have eliminated significant study space. To allow for continued growth in the collection, low-use books were transferred to the Washington Research Library Consortium's (WRLC) Offsite Storage facility, located in Upper Marlboro, Maryland. The shelf space gained will accommodate acquisitions for the next 5 years.

Library liaisons worked with faculty colleagues in each department or program to determine which of the storage candidates would remain on campus. In addition to personal contact with faculty, we created a storage Web site where faculty could individually remove titles from the storage candidates list. Over 4,000 volumes remain on campus as a result of requests received in this way.

Please remember that we can retrieve materials from storage at your request. Each book housed in the storage facility includes the location "Off-campus storage" in GEORGE, the online catalog. You should expect a book to take 1-2 business days (M-F) to be retrieved from storage. If a title you use frequently has been stored, it will be returned permanently to the Library shelves. To help you decide whether a particular title is relevant to your research, the tables of contents of over 1,500 books were photocopied and will soon be scanned and linked to their records in GEORGE.

Once again, thank you for your understanding and participation in the storage project. It could not have been successful without you.

Sincerely,

Susan K. Martin
University Librarian