Books Everywhere and not a Shelf to Spare!

The mandate of research libraries to accumulate means that there is always a need for shelf space on which to store materials. At Brown even the newest of the large libraries, the Sciences Library, is now twenty-five years old. In the years since its completion we have added over one million books to the collections and have effectively filled all the useful space in library buildings. The Orwig Music Library, completed in 1989, will be filled before the turn of the century. We now face difficult choices as we continue to accumulate materials.

Lack of storage space has a direct impact on the library's ability to preserve its collections and keep damage to a minimum. Some 22,000 books from the collections were repaired last year. Some were damaged in circulation; others by internal movement such as shifting to create space in
overcrowded areas. As the library buildings approach capacity, shelves grow ever more crowded, shifting books becomes more necessary, and reshelving circulated books is more difficult. The result is that books suffer from wear and tear that might be avoided if there was more space available.

The library recognized this growing problem in the late 1980s and, after close study, a task force released its recommendations. These included adding shelving, maximizing current available space, collection management procedures such as weeding and reformatting, and also leasing storage space
from an outside vendor. Most of the recommendations have now been put in place. Shelving has been added in all suitable areas and the library has maximized the space presently available. But the library is not just a warehouse for books and it is not possible to simply add shelving in all open areas. The library is the intellectual and scholarly focal point of the campus. It is a place for members of the University community to find and use library materials, to study, to socialize, to attend classes, and to do research. Computing clusters added to the libraries over the past few years have been heavily used but have cost the library some of its space.

Shelf space is needed to allow
for collection movement.

Books waiting to be placed
in the stacks

In response to another of the task force recommendations, the library began to lease space from the Harvard Depository Library (HDL) located in Southboro, MA in 1992. At present approximately 60,000 volumes are stored there. This is low-use material selected after review by library specialists. At our present rate of growth, however, we will need to send more volumes to HDL on a continuing basis, and the cost of leasing the space as well as retrieving needed materials for use will continue to rise. The library is exploring other possible solutions for space needs including leasing a building in Providence, renovation of local or on-campus buildings, or a possible addition to an existing library. However, any of these measures will be extremely costly and come at a time when the University is already at the limits of its funding abilities. But the magnitude of the library's space problem must continue to receive attention from librarians and Friends as well as the University administration. It is clear that even with new information formats, document delivery, computer retrieval, and other technological advances, book publishing shows no sign of abating and the library can expect to add books to the collection for many years to come. A proper storage environment for these and other research materials is vital.

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