Against the Grain
Volume 27 | Issue 2 Article 12
2015 The oJ e and Rika Mansueto Library at the University of Chicago Andrea Twiss-Brooks University of Chicago Library, [email protected]
Follow this and additional works at: https://docs.lib.purdue.edu/atg Part of the Library and Information Science Commons
Recommended Citation Twiss-Brooks, Andrea (2015) "The oeJ and Rika Mansueto Library at the University of Chicago," Against the Grain: Vol. 27: Iss. 2, Article 12. DOI: https://doi.org/10.7771/2380-176X.7036
This document has been made available through Purdue e-Pubs, a service of the Purdue University Libraries. Please contact [email protected] for additional information. Update on the Welch Medical Library by Sue Woodson (Welch Medical Library, Johns Hopkins University)
his brief communication updates a pre- appeared completely, however. Print books careful recommendations about what to keep sentation given at the 2010 Charleston can be requested via the catalog and are then and what to weed. TConference that described, in part, delivered to and retrieved from a user’s office In addition to changes in the weeding Welch Medical Library’s journey to an on campus. Recently Hopkins joined the project, library staff have been re-located; all-electronic collection. The Welch journal Borrow Direct program, and, as a result, the the Welch building has been repaired and collection was then almost entirely online, collection of shared print materials available renovated; and a new academic center has and the next goal was to remove up to 80% to Welch users has grown enormously. been moved into its ground floor. The West of the print collection that duplicated those After weeding slightly more than 80,000 Reading Room, home to the famous portrait online holdings. Staff developed criteria volumes, Welch stopped to consult with a of the Four Doctors, was refurnished to fa- for selecting titles to withdraw (e.g., out- committee of users from across the medi- cilitate quiet study, and serve as a space for of-scope works and or those that duplicated cal campus about the future of the Welch lectures, or a hall where up to 100 people our electronic holdings building. In response to could dine. A handicap-accessible bathroom but were also this committee’s was installed to meet building codes. The held in trusted work the de- East Reading Room was renovated to create third-party ar- cision was inviting areas for individual and group study. chives like the made to Long-deferred repairs and upgrades were National Library pause the made. Energy-efficient windows replaced of Medicine and Portico.) weeding single-pane ones on three sides of the build- A temporary staff member project for ing, two leaking skylights were repaired, and was hired to help with the extra work. now. Neverthe- many electrical outlets were added for users She and cataloging staff began identifying less Welch staff continue to generate lists of who bring their laptops and other devices and removing the appropriate titles and then titles for expected future removal. We believe needing to recharge. correcting the catalog records to reflect the that eventually Welch will be asked to remove removal. The renovated Welch building has once the print collection from the building. We again become a favorite site for events on Four years later Welch has moved even have seen this occur in other academic med- campus. The Welch Library continues to closer to an all-electronic collection. We ical libraries. The print collection requires grow its collections and services, delivering have only six current journal subscriptions valuable space in a grand building on a large, them wherever our users are. in print format and spend less than .2% of crowded, decentralized medical campus. Our our budget on print books. Print has not dis- proactive efforts now will allow us to make
The Joe and Rika Mansueto Library at the University of Chicago by Andrea Twiss-Brooks (University of Chicago Library)
eginning more than a decade ago, the is what the previous Library Director, Judith University of Chicago Library began Nadler wrote: Ba planning process to address the need “Mass digitization leads users to collec- for additional shelving space for collections. tions; it does not take their place. As Planning included involvement by library companies such as Google and libraries staff, University faculty and administration, around the world digitize a growing and other stakeholders and culminated in the proportion of books and make them construction of the Joe and Rika Mansueto searchable online, such search results Library, a storage library, which was dedicated will increasingly point the way to our on October 18, 2011.1 With the opening of this rich print collection, fueling scholarly facility, the University demonstrated a commit- demand for access to these materials.”2 ment to keep the print collections on campus The new Mansueto Library uses state-of- for the next few decades. Peer institutions the-art robotic storage and retrieval technology have chosen to move significant volumes of to house up to 3.5 million volumes (or the materials to off-site storage facilities when equivalent in archival boxes or other formats) faced with capacity issues; local opinion held of material in high-density storage space, The Library also wanted selections which could that this solution would impede scholarly re- providing scholars with delivery turnaround be easily explained to library users, as well as search. While faculty at the University value times of 15 minutes. The selection of materials selections that provided a large volume of ma- the availability of large full-text databases like shelved in the Mansueto Library is focused terial which could be identified and processed HathiTrust, online journal subscriptions, and on those whose removal from the browsable in a timely fashion. During the first year of commercial eBook offerings, in at least some shelving in the University of Chicago’s five operation several hundred thousand volumes disciplines these resources are not viewed as campus libraries will have the most limited or were transferred from various campus libraries. replacements to on-site print collections. This controllable effects on research and teaching. continued on page 23
22 Against the Grain / April 2015
Getting Ready and Beginning Work umes stored in our basement would need to be the stacks to our loading dock each week by Pritzker Legal Research Center is the moved to allow construction crews access to a facilities staff, which also drops off empty library for Northwestern University School particular area. In our 2011 plan, we had identi- totes in the stacks. of Law (“Northwestern Law”). As with many fied these volumes to send off-site. These were In some cases, the staff use a laptop and long-established libraries, we hold many older sent during a three-week period in February portable barcode scanner to create the files print materials, a significant portion of which and March, 2014. Later that spring, the Galter of scanned barcodes that are emailed to be are now reliably available electronically. The Health Sciences Library completed sending processed. In others, staff members pack the library expects to renovate its physical space, its weekly loads to Oak Grove, freeing up entire run without scanning, and the necessary though that will likely entail a smaller footprint system capacity for Pritzker to begin sending database work is done with a related piece of and less stack capacity. materials. Following our 2011 plan, we have software making batch changes to Voyager. In late 2010, the then-Associate Dean for been sending weekly loads of materials since The first approach works best when picking Information Services asked our librarians to June, 2014, with occasional breaks. non-sequential volumes from an area (such as a portion of the monographs). The second develop a plan detailing which materials would Specifics on Doing the Work move off-site were the library to reduce its approach works better when an entire run of shelving capacity by up to 55%. In late spring, Because we need to prepare weekly ship- a serial is being sent off-site. 2011, the librarians completed the plan, which ments with a lean staff, we have found a few There is typically a bit of cleanup work consists of a series of rules for what to keep on- ways to achieve maximum efficiencies. to do after the data are processed. However, site and what to move to remote storage. The First, our University Library colleague this takes relatively little time compared to rules vary a bit from collection to collection Gary Strawn helped us by modifying the moving volumes and processing them one- within the library, but by and large they say Oak Grove Assistant pro- by-one at a work- to send off-site: gram he developed for station, and has al- 1. those print materials which do not Northwestern’s internal lowed Pritzker to require extensive browsing, and for use with Voyager. The continue work on which there is reliable electronic modifications allow us an important project access; and to change item records through a period of in bulk by having Oak lean staffing and 2. many older materials (regardless of Grove Assistant process staff turnover. electronic access) which have seen .txt files of scanned bar- little use in the past 20 years. We estimate our codes rather than scan- Oak Grove proj- While Pritzker planned, the University ning barcodes one-by- ect will take about was building the first module of its Oak one into the program. three years total to Grove Library Center, which opened in late Second, we decided to complete. At the fall, 2011. During the facility’s first two years minimize the handling end of that time, we of operation, the University Library and the of materials. With the expect to have on Galter Health Sciences Library sent mate- software modifications site a more compact rials there. (A similar deselection project at discussed above, we and fresher-appearing collection that the Galter Health Sciences Library is also could pack the materials will be of greater use to our patrons, detailed in this issue.) into totes in the stacks, while allowing for changes to library As a construction project at Northwestern instead of moving all vol- space that accommodate contemporary Law was about to break ground in spring, 2014, umes on trucks to a workstation for scanning usage patterns. Pritzker became aware that about 5,000 vol- and packing. The filled totes are moved from
of bound serials volumes, with highest priority in Mansueto, and, while not directly related The Joe and Rika Mansueto ... being those available as online full-text equiv- to its function as a storage library, a grand from page 22 alents or well indexed in online databases. In reading room “under the dome” provides a addition, extremely large oversized volumes unique environment for consulting materials A number of selection options were considered: (aka “elephant folios”) and archival materials, from the collection or for other scholarly work selecting clusters of subject-related materials which also are of limited value for browsing, or study and has become a popular destination in areas of low research/teaching interest, se- are located on special racks in the facility. for students on campus. lecting duplicates and closely related editions, As of June 30, 2014 the Mansueto Library selecting materials by format or type which contained nearly 1.2 million items. do not have close subject classification (e.g., In addition to providing greatly expanded Endnotes dissertations, microforms, etc.), transferring shelving capacity, the construction of the 1. http://mansueto.lib.uchicago.edu/ materials that were already shelved in non- Mansueto Library provided space for library 2. The Joe and Rika Mansueto Library: browsable locations, and transferring bound services and for scholars and students. A Director’s Message http://mansueto.lib. serial volumes from library stacks. After much state of the art conservation laboratory and uchicago.edu/director.html (accessed Feb. discussion and consultation with faculty advi- space for the Library’s digital preservation 19, 2015). sors, the Library chose to focus on the transfer program staff and equipment were included
Against the Grain / April 2015