By Shorba Harkhu
The Life Sciences Library on the Pietermaritzburg campus recently
acquired a new remote storage area. This happened by default, as the old remote
storage space was needed for the building of the UKZN
Zebrafish Research Facility. We welcomed this move with more than open arms
as the old space was being used as a dumping ground for all sorts of broken and
unused material and the space reminded us of a dark and dingy dungeon. There
was no proper ventilation, and dampness had seeped into the walls. The
collection of journals that had been housed here lay open to water damage,
mildew and pest infestation. This place was definitely not conducive to the
protection and preservation of this collection. The staff also felt that it
posed a health hazard, and dreaded trudging through the dungeon to fulfil a journal
request.
The new storage space is located in John Bews Block A,
measuring 5.7 x 9.3 meters. The old remote storage space measured 8.7 x 12.2
meters. This meant that the collection
had to be reduced drastically to fit into the new confined space. Therefore, excessive
weeding had to take place.
The iCatalogue and
Sabinet databases were searched to
ascertain whether the remote storage collection of journals were available at
other South African universities. If they were, then they were discarded. A
total of 155 journal titles were weeded from the collection of 213 titles. The
weeding proved to be quite a feat, as one had to work in an area that was not
hygienic, not well aerated, and had poor lighting. The above tasks were
performed by the Life Sciences subject librarians.
After the weeding process, the journals had to be moved to a
temporary location, as the compactum shelving in the old remote storage area had
to be dismantled and set up again in the new location. Celeste Clark (School of
Life Sciences Technical Manager) organised the move and her student interns
painstakingly moved the collection to the temporary location and then to the
new remote storage area. The project started at the end of 2019, and at the
beginning of 2020 it had to be suspended because of Covid. We were given the
keys at the beginning of 2023.
The
weeded journals lying on the floor
The temporary location
Some unique
remote storage spaces
· The Joe and Rika Mansueto Library at the University of Chicago houses an underground high-density automated storage and retrieval system. Materials are retrieved within an average time of 3 minutes through the use of robotic cranes.[1]
· The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign uses an industrial-type warehouse shelving to house its lesser-used books. Items are shelved by size rather than call numbers, and are retrieved by means of a customized forklift.[2]
· The Macquarie University Library in Australia houses an automated storage and retrieval system that contains 17 000 metal bins stacked 4 storeys high. It houses the entire library’s collection of printed material, is climate-controlled and has enough room for it to grow in the next 40 years![3]
[1] Available:
https://www.lib.uchicago.edu/mansueto/tech/asrs/
[2] Available:
https://news.illinois.edu/view/6367/211759
[3] Available:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5SegEbE_QhM
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