Comments on: Is A Book In The Library Worth Two in the Offsite Storage Facility? http://blog.oup.com/2009/02/library_storage/ Academic insights for the thinking world. Fri, 24 May 2013 14:13:47 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.4.2 By: Using your Librarians : OUPblog http://blog.oup.com/2009/02/library_storage/#comment-149560 Using your Librarians : OUPblog Thu, 05 Mar 2009 16:53:45 +0000 http://blog.oup.com/?p=3401#comment-149560 [...] week I wrote about some of the frustrations I have with libraries and the burgeoning practice of moving items to [...] [...] week I wrote about some of the frustrations I have with libraries and the burgeoning practice of moving items to [...]

]]> By: Book Calendar http://blog.oup.com/2009/02/library_storage/#comment-149454 Book Calendar Thu, 26 Feb 2009 18:57:46 +0000 http://blog.oup.com/?p=3401#comment-149454 Libraries are plagued by endless expansion. The more academic it is the worse the expansion. This leads to the creation of offsite storage spaces which take days to reach. This also applies to law libraries where everything is based on precedent and many of the older legal volumes have never been converted to digital formats. I think offsite storage is terrible. Even adding an extra wing or an extra floor is better than having to send for something offsite. People can wait patiently for fifteen minutes to half an hour while someone searches in the dusty stacks for an old book. They become impatient if it takes longer than that. I work in a public library in a central branch. A lot of our funding comes from circulation of materials and use of material. The longer you have to wait to get something the less likely they are to use it. Browsing and immediate use partially drives our funding for material. We have a mezzanine where we keep all the last copies of books in the county. Luckily we have two floors for storage inside the building. I don't know what we would do if we had to move material offsite. I think we would lose a lot of it because the storage would become too expensive during times of budget crunches. Libraries are plagued by endless expansion. The more academic it is the worse the expansion. This leads to the creation of offsite storage spaces which take days to reach. This also applies to law libraries where everything is based on precedent and many of the older legal volumes have never been converted to digital formats.

I think offsite storage is terrible. Even adding an extra wing or an extra floor is better than having to send for something offsite.

People can wait patiently for fifteen minutes to half an hour while someone searches in the dusty stacks for an old book. They become impatient if it takes longer than that.

I work in a public library in a central branch. A lot of our funding comes from circulation of materials and use of material. The longer you have to wait to get something the less likely they are to use it.

Browsing and immediate use partially drives our funding for material.

We have a mezzanine where we keep all the last copies of books in the county. Luckily we have two floors for storage inside the building. I don’t know what we would do if we had to move material offsite. I think we would lose a lot of it because the storage would become too expensive during times of budget crunches.

]]> By: John Jackson http://blog.oup.com/2009/02/library_storage/#comment-149453 John Jackson Thu, 26 Feb 2009 17:42:42 +0000 http://blog.oup.com/?p=3401#comment-149453 Ammon, You're right. There is something lost when moving materials off campus, but I disagree (and I think other librarians may feel the same) that this is seen as a sign of progress. In our case, it's a necessity. I work at USC in Los Angeles, a university campus bound by an urban environment with little room for expansion. If one of our libraries accumulates too many materials, the books have to be sent to another library or (as is most likely) to the offsite location. This happens frequently as we're always trying to keep our collections up to date. The increasing availability of e-resources does help, especially with periodicals. But the reality of our situation (I can't speak for other institutions) is that there is only so much room and the research needs of the students outweigh other pleasures. That said, our off-site location is open to the public. You can come to browse its over 1 million materials to you heart's content. Just the other day I came across a late 19th century bio of Hayden. Absolutely divine. I enjoyed reading your article and I hope my response doesn't come across as too reactive. But I wanted to make sure at least one librarian spoke up to say "We miss browsing too!" John Ammon,

You’re right. There is something lost when moving materials off campus, but I disagree (and I think other librarians may feel the same) that this is seen as a sign of progress. In our case, it’s a necessity.

I work at USC in Los Angeles, a university campus bound by an urban environment with little room for expansion. If one of our libraries accumulates too many materials, the books have to be sent to another library or (as is most likely) to the offsite location. This happens frequently as we’re always trying to keep our collections up to date. The increasing availability of e-resources does help, especially with periodicals.
But the reality of our situation (I can’t speak for other institutions) is that there is only so much room and the research needs of the students outweigh other pleasures.

That said, our off-site location is open to the public. You can come to browse its over 1 million materials to you heart’s content. Just the other day I came across a late 19th century bio of Hayden. Absolutely divine.

I enjoyed reading your article and I hope my response doesn’t come across as too reactive. But I wanted to make sure at least one librarian spoke up to say “We miss browsing too!”

John

]]>