Final Report of the Working Group, October 1996 Working Group Activities Findings Recommendations Working Group Documents Executive Summary Existing collections seriously overcrowd the shelving available at several units of the Yale University Library. Collection growth alone requires 1.8 miles of new shelving annually, but none is being provided. Indeed, shelving is being lost in the renovation of Sterling Memorial Library. Planning for the new Music and Arts libraries also requires shelving beyond what is provided on-site at those units. The Seeley G. Mudd Library is full to capacity. Much of the university's world-class collections are kept in environmental conditions that range from marginally adequate to positively damaging. Overcrowding on the shelves is itself damaging to books. Preservation issues are the central concern of the Sterling book stack renovation project, but the 64% of the collection not shelved there also requires protection. Many universities, including Harvard, have successfully adopted off-campus shelving as a way to meet both their shelving and preservation needs.* Such shelving costs a tenth of what on-campus shelving costs, and it provides nearly ideal conditions for the long-term preservation of library materials. The principal disadvantage of off-campus shelving is that readers cannot browse the material at these facilities. The Working Group appointed by Provost Richard and Vice President Mullinix to consider an off-campus shelving facility for Yale was keenly aware of the importance of browsing for many teaching and research activities. It concluded, however, that maintaining browsing for every part of the collection is prohibitively expensive. The Working Group believes the library and university are best served by shelving infrequently-used material, where browsing has least value, at an off-campus facility. The Working Group believes just as emphatically that frequently-used material, where quick access and browsing have particularly high value, must be kept on campus. The success of off-campus shelving services depends on several factors, including: The thoughtful selection of infrequently-used materials for off-campus shelving. The Working Group observes that many other universities have succeeded in making the discrimination between high- and low-use research materials. The availability of on-line records for all material held off-campus, and an effective on-line shelf list to facilitate remote browsing. An unwavering commitment to maintaining excellent delivery services and exacting environmental conditions. The ability to deliver large numbers of items to individual readers who need to browse through them for research projects; and the ability to bring large quantities of material back to campus when needed for seminars, new courses, etc. A ready willingness to correct mistakes made in the identification of low-use material. The Working Group believes these conditions for success can be met at Yale, as they have been elsewhere, and recommends the university use off-campus shelving to meet its present and ongoing need for library shelving. The Working Group makes a series of recommendations-on preservation conditions, facility design, the on-line catalog, repairs to the Mudd Library, and other matters-necessary for the creation of an off-campus shelving facility. The selection of material for the new facility is a critically important matter, and the Working Group recommends among other things close consultation with faculty, discipline-specific selection criteria, and flexibility in returning material to campus (see Recommendation 9). The Working Group also recommended wide consultation with faculty and other readers over the next year as the facility is designed and details of its operation are planned. Working Group Activities (Click here to return to the top of this report). In April 1996, Provost Alison Richard and Vice President Joe Mullinix charged a Working Group to advise them on the feasibility of an off-campus high-efficiency shelving facility. Such a facility would relieve existing over-crowding in library book stacks, provide space for library materials permanently displaced by various construction and other space planning activities, and accommodate future collection growth. It would also help ensure the long-term preservation of library materials. Members of the Working Group have been: Diane Abbott Architect/Planner, University Planning Office Scott Bennett (chair) University Librarian Paul Conway Head, Library Preservation Department Pamela Delphenich University Planner, Planning Office of Facilities Management John Mack Faragher Professor of History and Chair, Advisory Committee on Library Policy Mary LaFogg Chief Collections Management Archivist, Manuscripts and Archives Department Max Marmor Head, Arts Library J. Michael McBride Professor of Chemistry Margaret Plympton Director of Administrative Services and Planning Jules Prown Professor of History of Art Thomas Schneiter Head, Sterling Memorial Library Circulation Department Lloyd Suttle Associate Provost John Vincenti Manager, Library Building Operations and Security Donald Waters Associate University Librarian The Working Group surveyed existing off-campus shelving facilities and visited the Harvard Depository. It conferred with a private vendor offering such services; assessed the need for additional shelving space; modeled the capital and operating costs for off-campus shelving; evaluated some key facility design issues; investigated cooperative development of such a facility with Columbia University and the New York Public Library; inspected a number of possible building sites; and discussed a wide range of operational issues, including the future use of the Seeley G. Mudd Library. An independent consultant with wide experience in the design of off-campus shelving reviewed the Group's Final Report. Findings (Click here to return to the top of this report). Need. Three key considerations prompt the Working Group recommendation of an off-campus shelving facility: (1) lack of space to shelve existing and incoming library materials; (2) the high cost of on-campus shelving; and (3) the need to provide good environmental conditions and security for the long-term preservation of Yale's collections. An April 1994 Library Space Planning Task Force found that Sterling and 10 of the 18 school and department libraries were operating with inadequate shelving space. Overcrowding was critical in the Music, Art and Architecture, Divinity, Map, Drama, and Public Health libraries, in Manuscripts and Archives, and in the Historical Sound Recording collection. The Mudd library was fast filling to maximum capacity. Since 1994, relief has been found for the Public Health library, but otherwise the situation has worsened due to collection growth and space contraction. As of 1996: Both the new Music library and the Arts library have been designed with the explicit expectation that parts of their collections will be kept at a new shelving facility. No alternatives to this expectation have been provided. The renovation of the Sterling book stacks and the design of the new Music library have decreased the shelving space available in Sterling by nearly the equivalent of one book stack floor (of the original sixteen). Space planning for the arts area of the campus requires the relocation of 10,200 linear feet of archival material (approximately 25% of the entire University Archives). Floor loading limits in Sterling are forcing a dysfunctional relocation of as much as 25% of the flat maps in the Map collection. The Seeley G. Mudd Library is full to capacity. The collections continue to grow each year by approximately 157,000 volumes and 2,100 linear feet of archival material. Digital publications will have only marginal impact over the next decade or more in moderating the space requirements of collection growth. Through the Sterling book stacks renovation project, the university is acting to preserve for the long term the immensely valuable collections assembled at Yale over the last three-hundred years. A new shelving facility will enable the university to extend excellent environmental conditions to other parts of the collection at a fraction of the costs incurred at Sterling. Moreover, a new shelving facility will allow us to secure highly valuable books now kept on open shelves at a fraction of the cost of keeping them in a special collections library, such as the Beinecke. The Working Group believes the university and the library must promptly meet the need for additional shelving and address the preservation needs of the entire collection. The expedients the library is now forced to adopt for the map collection involve degraded services to readers; the operating costs of over-crowded shelving are significant; and several new construction projects will be completed in the next few years that expressly depend on a new shelving facility. Equally important, every year a book spends in the uncontrolled environmental conditions so common at Yale hastens its chemical embrittlement. Such conditions threaten the long-term survival of the collections, and they drive a set of preservation reformatting activities estimated to cost between $70 and $100 per volume. To defer the provision of new shelving is poor stewardship of the physical property of the university, of its financial resources, and of the written record of humanity entrusted to the library's care. Shelving Alternatives. There are several ways to meet the need for additional shelving. Estimated Annualized Construction and Building Operating Costs shelving type $ per volume shelved Central-campus, browsable, ADA-compliant $2.40 Campus-town interface, semi-browsable (i.e., Mudd) $0.94 Off-campus, non-browsable $0.18 Sources: Cost estimates are drawn from Working Papers 2 and 5 (see list in Section 4 of this report). Extrapolations from project-cost information provided by the Goldman Law Library suggest central-campus, browsable, moveable shelving might cost $0.86 per volume shelved -- i.e., might be comparable to costs at the Mudd library. Obviously there are significant capital cost incentives for adopting off-campus shelving. It is equally clear that these incentives are somewhat offset by operating costs for the new building and for the delivery of material to and from the facility. Those costs vary with the size of the collection shelved off campus and the number of items circulated from the facility. These costs are estimated to range from a low of $176,250 (with 500,000 volumes off campus) to $738,750 (with 5.5 million items off campus) -- see p. 11, below. These new operating costs are far more than paid for by the $2.22 cost difference, described above, between central-campus and off-campus shelving.1 Policy Implications. The order of magnitude difference in the cost of on- and off-campus shelving offers a significant opportunity to contain the increase in library costs at the same time that the long-term preservation and security of the collections is greatly enhanced. Securing these important benefits requires: The thoughtful selection of infrequently-used materials for off-campus shelving. The Working Group observes that many other universities have succeeded in making the discrimination between high- and low-use research materials. The availability of on-line records for all material held off-campus, and an effective on-line shelf list to facilitate remote browsing. An unwavering commitment to maintaining excellent delivery services and exacting environmental conditions. The ability to deliver large numbers of items to individual readers who need to browse through them for individual research projects; and the ability to bring large quantities of material back to campus when needed for seminars, new courses, etc. Convenient, browsable shelving must be provided at on-campus libraries for large groups of material readers request be brought back to campus temporarily. A ready willingness to correct mistakes made in the identification of low-use material. The success of an off-campus facility also depends on the closely integrated management of the university's capital and operating budgets. It will not be possible to achieve substantial capital savings (by avoiding the high construction costs of on-campus shelving) without incurring comparatively modest increases in the operating budget (for delivery from an off-campus shelving facility). None of the operational guarantors of success described in the previous paragraph can be secured without increases in operating costs. In recommending an off-campus shelving facility, the Working Group is keenly aware of the loss of two features of on-campus, open shelving that readers value highly: Ready self-service access to library collections (within, say 20 minutes, as opposed to slower accessãup to 24 hoursãfor off-campus material) The ability to browse the shelves directly. The Working Group affirms both of these to be important values, but they are not absolute values to be purchased at any price. The Working Group believes it is in the library's and university's best interest to use low-cost off-campus shelving for infrequently-used research material, where fast access and shelf browsing have least impact on teaching and research. The Working Group believes just as emphatically that frequently-used material, where quick access and browsing have particularly high value, should be kept on campus. To ensure that the university's existing on-campus shelving capacity suffers no erosion, the Working Group strongly urges that steps be taken to maintain the Mudd Library as a viable shelving facility. That can be done only through the renovation of its dysfunctional heating, ventilating, and air-conditioning system. Without such renovation, the collections at Mudd will continue to be at risk from mold growths and inadequate control of temperature and humidity fluctuations. An important implication of the creation of an off-campus shelving facility is that the size of the on-campus collection will, for the foreseeable future, cease to grow. Its contents will, however, be actively managed and change over time as new high-use material is added to the collection and other less-frequently used material is transferred off-campus. There are today 10.6 million volumes and 50,000 linear feet of archival material shelved on Yale's campus, often on seriously over-crowded shelves. What will change, and how quickly will it happen? Over perhaps the next ten years, up to 2.8 million existing volumes will be moved to off-campus shelving, to relieve over-crowded on-campus shelving. An additional 34,000 linear feet of archival material will be moved to relieve over-crowding and to free space needed for other purposes. Every year, the library now acquires nearly 157,000 additional volumes for its collections. This number may fall somewhat over time as more publishing moves to electronic formats. To maintain an on-campus collection of stable size, the library must each year move another 157,000 volumes to the new facility. These will in some cases be newly purchased works; in most cases they will be infrequently-used material that should be displaced by more frequently-needed new publications. Given an on-campus collection that eventually stabilizes at 7.8 million volumes, and a long-term growth rate of as much as 157,000 volumes a year, the off-campus book and journal collection will grow each year by approximately 2% of the size of the on-campus collection. A long-term annual growth rate of about 2,100 linear feet of new archival material (about 13% of the on-campus collection) will also be accommodated off-campus. Archival material has, of course, never been directly browsable in the way books on open shelves are. Other possible means of action. The Working Group investigated possible advantages in contracting for off-campus shelving needs rather than having the university own and operate the facility. It also investigated the possibility of developing such a facility jointly with Columbia University and the New York Public Library, both of which expressed interest in such a venture. The Working Group received a preliminary bid from a New Haven firm interested in providing off-campus shelving services to Yale. Both the capital and operating costs of this bid were substantially higher than those modeled by the Working Group. This bid mirrors the experience of the Working Group chair, who sought bids from a large, well-established records management firm in Maryland for an off-campus facility needed by Johns Hopkins University. Quite aside from initial cost issues, the Working Group does not think it prudent for the university to incur substantial costs in moving material to a shelving facility it does not own and whose long-term operating costs it cannot control. The Working Group gave close attention to possible joint-development of a shelving facility with Columbia University and the New York Public Library. Our cost modeling of this option suggested that Yale (and each of its partners) might save $135,000 annually through joint action. This savings would be reduced by the cost of the administrative structures required for the three institutions to work closely and effectively together on shelving needs and delivery services. And should the partnership effort fail for any reason, the costs of disengaging from it are very high. Finally, while the annual cost savings of joint action remain stable over time, the total cost of operating a quickly-growing facility increases. The result is that the incentive for joint action (i.e., the amount saved divided by total operating costs) decreases over time as the complexity of the operation increases. For these reasons, the Working Group decided not to pursue cooperative action further. (There were meetings with Columbia and the New York Public Library, but neither institution commented on or otherwise responded to the cost model and analysis for cooperative development that Yale sent them.) The Working Group asked other agencies managing collections at Yale if they have any interest in the library's off-campus shelving facility. The Center for British Art expressed an interest in shelving part of its library collection there, and one unit at the Medical School expressed interest in using the facility for records storage. Both could readily be accommodated within a facility designed for library use. The Yale Art Gallery expressed serious interest in the facility for the temporary storage of parts of its collection during the renovation of the museum building. Alternatively, architectural planning of the renovated and expanded museum may determine that permanent off-site storage space is advisable. The Gallery's interest could therefore influence the number or timing of shelving modules that should be built over the first ten years, or it could change the amount of land that should be acquired if the Gallery wishes to build a specially-designed permanent facility for its own use. Key design issues. The Working Group did not attempt to create even a preliminary design for an actual off-campus shelving facility. The group did, however, identify and investigate a number of key design issues: Location. The facility should be located within a 20-30 minute drive from the Yale campus. The site must be flat for one-level construction and must be large enough to accommodate multi-phased, modular development over the next 30 to 50 years. There should be sufficient water pressure at the site to operate a sprinkler system for fire protection. The Working Group identified a number of possible sites and gave focused attention to Science Park as a possible location. Environmental conditions. The chance to secure optimal conditions for the long-term preservation of library collections is one of the primary motivations for the off-campus facility. Those conditions include the elimination of all UV light and minimal artificial lighting; the maintenance year-round of 60 degrees F. temperature and 30 percent relative humidity; and the filtration of air-borne pollutants. High-bay shelving. The Working Group considered two basic shelving options: high-bay shelving that can be reached only with a mechanical lift-truck (typical of warehouse operations), and two- or three-level mezzanine shelving directly accessible to staff (the design used at the University of California shelving facility near Berkeley and at some records storage firms). High-bay shelving appears to offer decided advantages in simpler design, efficient use of space, lower initial and ongoing costs, and staff efficiency. Non-browsable collections. The most effective use of space requires that materials be shelved by size, and not in classification number order. This, combined with a high-bay design for the shelving, makes the collection non-browsable. (The facility's inventory system ensures, however, that the location of each item is known at all times.) Cost of empty space. Empty shelving constitutes the principal inefficiency of an off-campus facility. It is therefore important to build the smallest possible cost-effective shelving module, and to build additional modules only when they are needed. Even so, there will always be some empty space. The capital and operating costs of empty space can be reduced by partially fitting out individual modules and completing them only as the shelving is needed, or by using empty space for compatible, non-library uses (e.g., the temporary storage of university records or of art collections). Cost ineffectiveness of renovating existing buildings. Library materials need a tightly controlled environment, and the efficient use of space requires specialized design. Few existing buildings have the level floors with high-load capacities, high bays, or environment controls needed for library materials. Most existing warehouse buildings have features (e.g., multiple loading docks) that are useless to the library but increase their price. The Working Group's survey of existing buildings found only one facility at all suitable, but its purchase and renovation would be much more expensive than new construction. Key operational issues. The Working Group also identified and investigated several key operational issues, which included: Retrospective conversion. To ensure good reader service, no material should be shelved off campus (and become non-browsable) unless it is represented in the on-line catalog. The library is committed to retrospectively converting its remaining 4.5 million card records to machine-readable form between FY1997 and FY2004. An on-line shelf list to facilitate the browsing of books in Orbis is now being tested and will be available to readers by late 1996 or early 1997. Priority attention will be given to collections that may in part be relocated to the off-campus facility. Even so, the pace of retrospective conversion may be a temporary limiting factor in using the new shelving. Ten-year needs. The Working Group believes that displaced and poorly-housed existing collections will require one 2-million volume shelving module and a third of a second such module. It will however take some years actually to fill these modules because of the need to convert bibliographic records to machine-readable form, and because we will surely wish to spread the high cost of transferring material to the new facility over a number of years. While these factors create some uncertainty about precise timing, the Working Group expects the library to have two 2-million volume modules in operation and fully occupied by the end of nine years. The Working Group further expects the library will need to build a third 2-million volume shelving module no later than nine years from now, which will provide another thirteen years of shelving. Inventory software. The library must decide between modifying the circulation functions of its existing Orbis software, to incorporate the management of material at the new facility, or purchasing specialized inventory management software. (Such software is available from Harvard or other universities operating off-campus shelving facilities, or from commercial records-management firms.) The critical issue is how tightly the single need at the new facility for location control should be integrated with the multiple functions of a general library circulation system. Close integration probably has little value for readers and will complicate the change the library anticipates making in its basic software system, Orbis. Loose integration requires an investment in a new and different software product. The Working Group lacks the expertise to make a recommendation and believes library staff should resolve this technical operating issue as part of the early design work for the new facility. Selection of material. The thoughtful identification of infrequently-used research material for the off-campus facility is critically important to good service and to realizing cost savings. The Working Group gave close attention to shaping its recommendations about the selection of material, stipulating close consultation with faculty, discipline-specific selection criteria, and flexibility in returning material to campus (see Recommendation 9, below). Reliable delivery services. Some faculty are skeptical that the commitment to effective delivery services will survive any future budget cuts at the library. The Working Group believes that if reliable delivery services between the off-campus facility and readers are not maintained, the off-campus facility will have to be abandoned and the university will have to resume construction of costly shelving on campus. The Working Group believes it essential that both the library and university administration remain firmly committed to the successful operation of the off-campus facility for the long term. Costs. The Working Group modeled the cost of building and operating an off-campus facility for ten years. Capital cost estimates are based primarily on the experience of other institutions, where costs for Harvard Depository-like buildings have been remarkably consistent. Operating costs are based on the costs of existing Yale library activities wherever possible. These cost estimates are reliable guides only for planning; actual costs will depend on the specifics of site selection, final building design, utility costs, etc. The Working Group estimates the costs (in FY1996 dollars) of an off-site shelving facility as follows: 1. Estimated Capital costs Initial construction of one shelving module (excluding land costs) $2,600,000 Land (approximate) 400,000 Renovation of Mudd Library HVAC systems 1,675,000 Total $4,675,000 2. Estimated Operating costs (excluding transfer of existing material) Annual building operations (with one shelving module in service) $150,000 Library services, 1st year (assuming 500,000 items on site and a 3% circulation rate) 26,250 Total $176,250 Annual building operations (with two shelving modules in service) $300,000 Library services, 5th year (assuming 2.5 million items on site and a 3% circulation rate) 131,250 Total $431,250 Annual building operations (with three shelving modules in service) $450,000 Library services, 10th year (assuming 4.7 million items on site and a 3% circulation rate) 246,750 Total $696,750 Annual building operations (with three shelving modules in service) $450,000 Library services, 15th year (assuming 5.5 million items on site and a 3% circulation rate) 288,750 Total $738,750 3. Estimated Additional operating cost (for transferring existing material) Transfer 3 million books, archival boxes, maps, and microfilm units (@ $2.31 each) $6,930,000 Sources: Cost estimates are based on Working Papers 2, 9, and 10; see list in Section 4 of this report. This estimate somewhat over-states the cost of transferring the nearly 190,000 archival, microfilm, and historical recording items included in the 3 million item total. Unit costs for these 190,000 items will be somewhat lower because item-level bibliographic control for them differs from that for books. This estimate may also over-state building operating costs, as the addition of new shelving modules will probably not drive operating costs up linearly. The Working Group assumes the $6.9 million cost of transferring existing collections to the new facility, which is much more than the cost of the facility itself, will be spread over several years.2 The Working Group makes no recommendation on this time period, which will surely be governed by the availability of funds, the progress of retrospective conversion, and the space pressure on individual library units. If, however, one assumes the cost of transferring material were spread evenly over ten years, the 1st, 5th, 10th year operating cost estimates given above would increase by $693,000 each (to $869,250, $1,124,250, and $1,389,750 respectively). The 15th year operating costs would remain $738,750. The cost of transferring material is substantial but now inescapable. It will have to be borne wherever or however additional shelving is provided. The university has avoided this cost in the past by filling existing shelving to over-capacity. In effect, the high cost of filling the new facility with existing materials represents the accumulation, over many years, of these delayed but ultimately necessary operating costs. Recommendations (Click here to return to the top of this report). 1. The facility. The Working Group RECOMMENDS that Yale University build an off-campus high-efficiency shelving facility. The schematic design phase for the new facility should include a cost comparison for building one 2-million volume shelving module now and a second module for occupancy four years later, or building capacity for 4-million volumes initially. The new facility would be the first of a number of shelving modules the Yale University Library will require over the next 30 to 50 years. The Working Group believes this facility should be modeled on the Harvard Depository and others like it at several universities in the United States. 2. Environmental conditions. The Working Group RECOMMENDS that the new shelving facility provide optimal environmental conditions for the long-term preservation of library materials kept there. These conditions include tight controls for temperature, relative humidity, light, air-borne pollutants, vibration, and exposure to animal and insect pests, harmful bacteria, and fungi. The two most critical environmental conditions are a constantly-maintained temperature of 60 degrees F. and 30 percent relative humidity. Separately controlled conditions with lower temperatures should be provided for microformats, color film, magnetic tape, and other fragile media held at the new facility. The Working Group believes optimal conditions for the preservation of library material can be created at low cost at the new facility. Securing such conditions for a large and important part of Yale's collections is a prime motivation for building the facility. 3. Timing. The Working Group RECOMMENDS that the first off-campus shelving module be ready for operation by 1 June 1998. Any date later than this will seriously compromise bringing the new Music Library and the renovated Arts Library into service. A later date would also compromise renovation plans for the School of Drama and complicate the Beinecke Library's plans for creating needed new shelf space in the Sterling Annex. The Working Group believes the university will need a second 2-million volume shelving module for occupancy in the fourth year of operation and a third module for occupancy in the ninth year. The timing for these additional modules will be determined primarily by decisions regarding the pace of transferring existing collections to the first module. The timing might also be affected by decisions to use the off-campus facility for temporary art storage or records storage. It may be more cost effective to build three smaller shelving modules over the next nine years than two larger ones. The Working Group makes no recommendation on this matter, which it believes is best addressed in the schematic design of the new facility. 4. Site. The Working Group RECOMMENDS (4a) that the facility be located within 20-30 minutes drive from the Yale campus, to keep delivery costs as low as possible; (4b) that the site provide space adequate for a total of six shelving modules, plus associated office and work space; and (4c) that space be reserved, if the site is reasonably convenient to campus, for library processing operations that someday may be located elsewhere than in Sterling Memorial Library. The Working Group believes 3 to 8 acres will be required (depending on allowable site coverage); the site should provide for at least 50 years of collection growth. At present, no plans exist to move library processing operations; but such a move has been considered as a possible long-term strategy for meeting pressing space needs. 5. Consultants. The Working Group RECOMMENDS that the university employ warehouse and environmental-controls specialists as consultants in designing the new shelving facility. Such consultants will ensure that Yale benefits from the considerable experience gained elsewhere in the construction of such facilities. 6. Facility design. The Working Group RECOMMENDS that the new facility employ a high-bay design, comparable to that at the Harvard Depository. This recommendation should be tested again in the schematic design of the new facility, but the Working Group observed that high-bay design in existing facilities appears to maximize their shelving capacity and to minimize their operating costs. 7. New construction. The Working Group RECOMMENDS that the university construct a new building for the shelving facility, rather than renovate an existing building. Experience elsewhere indicates that renovation projects usually require compromises in design and operating efficiencies and are unlikely to reduce costs. The Working Group notes that the survey of possible sites done by the Office of Facilities failed to find an existing building suitable for the new facility; it located several good sites for new construction. 8. Retrospective conversion of bibliographic records. The Working Group RECOMMENDS (8a) that no material be transferred to the off-campus shelving facility if it is not appropriately represented in the on-line catalog; and (8b) that priority attention be given to the retrospective conversion of bibliographic records for collections that must be promptly transferred, in all or in part, to the new facility. The Arts Library collection is an urgent case in point. 9. Selection policy. The Working Group RECOMMENDS (9a) that selection of material for the new facility be the responsibility of the library staff who already have selection and other collection-development responsibilities. These librarians have well-established, on-going connections with faculty and students and are well informed about the university's teaching and research programs. These librarians are well placed to ensure close consultation and open, flexible decisions about material to be shelved off-campus. The Working Group further RECOMMENDS (9b) that selection-policy guidelines be established by the library's Collection Development Council, a representative group of library selectors charged with other policy-setting responsibilities regarding the library's collections. The Working Group expects the policy developed for selecting material for shelving at the new facility will be reviewed by the faculty and student Advisory Committee on Library Policy. The Working Group believes the policy for selecting material for the new facility should reflect at least the three following cardinal considerations: Material at the new facility should be the least-frequently used parts of the collection. The economic rationale for the facility drives this criterion. Material at the new facility should particularly benefit from the optimal environmental conditions and the high security provided at the new facility. These are salient features of the facility, and it will be important to maximize their value for the material shelved there (brittle material, for instance, or 17th- and 18th-century imprints from the circulating collections). While the application of the infrequent-use standard will appropriately vary from discipline to discipline, every discipline has such material. No discipline should be exempt from having parts of its collections shelved at the new facility. Similarly, the use patterns of some formats (e.g., maps, archival material, microformats) will suggest different applications of the infrequent-use standard, but no format of material should be considered ipso facto ineligible for shelving at the new facility. The Working Group offers four other observations about library operations that are relevant to the selection of material for the new facility: Because use patterns for individual items and groups of items will change over time, as Yale's academic programs and research activities change, it should be routinely possible to relocate material to on- and off-campus shelving, as necessary. The Working Group expects the size of the on-campus collection to remain stable over time, but it equally expects that its contents will change in response to changing research and teaching needs. The creation of an off-campus shelving facility and the expectation that the on-campus collection will be stable in size suggest it may be useful to review the shelving roles of the Sterling and Mudd libraries, with the purpose of maximizing the utility of their different designs and locations. 3 The library should help readers maximize research behaviors, such as the effective use of on-line resources, that mitigate the effects of holding a significant part of the collection on non-browsable shelves. At the same time, the library should create an effective on-line shelf list to support virtual browsing and adopt, wherever possible, other means of enhancing the content and utility of its on-line records. If back-runs of journals are held in significant number at the new facility, the library might consider a cost-recovery service for the digital delivery of journal articles to readers' desktops. (It does not appear to the Working Group that such service can be funded as part of the standard services offered by the library from the new facility.) 10. Seeley G. Mudd Library. The Working Group RECOMMENDS (10a) that the Mudd Library continue to be used for the on-campus shelving of library material; and (10b) that its heating, ventilating, and air-conditioning systems be renovated to correct problems inimical to the long-term preservation of the collections. The Working Group believes the on-campus, browsable shelving available at Mudd is essential for maintaining a viable ratio between the on- and off-campus collections. The university cannot responsibly continue to use Mudd, however, without prompt attention to its inadequate, indeed its positively harmful HVAC systems. 11. Long-term commitment. The Working Group RECOMMENDS that both the library and the university administration make clear their commitment to the long-term success of the off-campus shelving facility. Success will in particular require an unwavering commitment to good delivery service, to the maintenance of optimal preservation conditions, to full bibliographic access, and to the ability to change the location of material as patterns of use change. 12. Campus-wide consultation. The Working Group RECOMMENDS that the library and the Advisory Committee on Library Policy give focused attention, during 1996-97, to conferring with the Yale community about the need for and the benefits and cost-effectiveness of an off-campus shelving facility, and about the service and policy implications of such a facility. The Working Group believes faculty in particular will be concerned about the selection of material for the new facility. They will question definitions of infrequent use and the library's ability to identify material so defined. Readers will have to believe the library and university will act on the matters identified in Recommendation 9, above. The library and university administration will have to acknowledge some loss to readers as parts of the collection become non-browsable. Readers will need to understand the significant preservation benefits of the new facility and the high direct cost and opportunity cost of accommodating collection growth on-campus. Readers should know that off-campus shelving facilities are already in successful operation at several other universities. The Working Group believes that the library should give focused attention to informing faculty about the new facility and to seeking their views and advice on bringing it into service most effectively. This may be done in meetings of individual departmental faculty, at meetings of interdisciplinary faculty groups (at Luce Hall and the Whitney Humanities Center, for instance), and at the Provost's meetings with deans and with department chairs. It is likely that some faculty will need individual attention, as perhaps will discrete user groups (e.g., those who make extensive use of the Mudd library).4 The Working Group believes the Advisory Committee on Library Policy should take a leading role in planning the wider discussion of the off-campus shelving facility within the Yale community. Working Group Documents (Click here to return to the top of this report). The following documents are available at Library Administration Office, 152 Sterling Memorial Library: 1. Library Space Planning Task Force, "Report on collection storage needs," 19 April 1994. Reports the imperative need to provide additional library shelving, system-wide. 2. Shelving Capital Costs Annualized, June 1996. Estimates and compares capital and some operating costs for on- and off-campus shelving. 3. Harvard Depository site visit, 26 June 1996. Describes a site visit by members of the Working Group to the Harvard Depository. 4. Cooperative development of off-site shelving, 24 July 1996. Analyzes the costs and other features of a shelving facility cooperatively developed with Columbia University and the New York Public Library. 5. Seeley G. Mudd Library, 25 July 1996. Describes the Mudd Library and estimates the cost of shelving material there. 6. Site- and design-sensitive cost factors, 7 August 1996. Identifies cost factors for an off-campus facility that are particularly sensitive to design and site decisions. 7. Specifications for environmental conditions, 7 August 1996. Analyzes and specifies the key environmental conditions that must be maintained at the new facility. 8. High-bay design, 12 August 1996. Compares high-bay and mezzanine designs for a shelving facility and describes the several advantages of high-bay design. 9. Operating costs, 20 August 1996. Estimates the operating costs of an off-campus shelving facility, excluding annual maintenance and depreciation costs of the building. 10. Required capacities, 24 October 1996. Estimates the number of items to be shelved at an off-campus facility over the next ten years, and beyond, and the number of shelving modules needed to accommodate this material. 11. Existing off-campus shelving facilities, 25 October 1996. Summarizes information gathered in a survey of eleven existing off-campus shelving facilities. 12. Site requirements and alternative sites, 25 October 1996 [confidential document]. Identifies several existing buildings and building sites that might be used for an off-campus shelving facility. Notes [*] The Working Group gathered information on eleven different off-campus shelving facilities, including those at Harvard, the University of California, Cornell, Johns Hopkins, Ohio State, and the University of Texas. [1] For instance, the first year's estimated operating cost of $176,250 is more than offset by the $1.1 million saved by shelving 500,000 volumes off campus rather than on campus. [2] An estimated 48% of these costs are required to update location information in the card catalog. One might argue that these resources ($3.3 million) would be far better invested in the early completion of the conversion of all card catalog records to machine-readable records. [3] Rationalizing and optimizing the on-campus location of library material would involve a set of collection-moving costs the Working Group did not try to estimate. [4] Discussions with readers should be informed by the work of Wendy P. Lougee reported in Lougee, Mark Sandler, and Linda L. Parker, "The Humanistic Scholars Project: A Study of Attitudes and Behavior Concerning Collection Storage and Technology," College & Research Libraries , (May 1990), 231-240; and Lougee, "Remote Shelving Comes of Age: Storage Collection Management at the University of Michigan," Collection Management , 16 (1992), 93-107. LSF HOME PAGE © 2000 Yale University Library Last modified: 20 March 2001 Comments: danuta.nitecki@yale.edu This file is located at http://www.library.yale.edu/lsf/historical1.html