Dear ARLIS-L,
I promised to compile the e-mails I received about
compact shelving and art books (which were very helpful and
informative). I removed everyone's name, but kept their institution
name (b/c I thought that was very helpful infomation.)--I hope this is
OK.
MY ORGINAL MESSAGE ….Dear Collective Wisdom,
Here at Emory
University we are
undertaking a
multi-year project to convert our Stack tower to Compact Shelving.
Standard shelves can only accommodate a book with a height of 12 1/2
inches (or
less) and a length of 9 1/2 inches (or less). The shelf has a depth
of only 9 inches.
If your collection is housed in compact shelving, how have you
chosen to
deal with oversized books?
Does everything go to the folio shelves?
I am actually most concerned about depth b/c most art books are longer
than 9
inches, and the units will not close properly if the books are much
wider.
Kim Collins, art history librarian and collection management subject
<>ANSWERS….
1) Dartmouth
We installed compact shelving in the late 90's
when I was
there. We had a large basement room
where we installed tall CS and shelved journals and oversize books. So, you can get non-standard CS. I'm,
however, fuzzy on the details. Perhaps query
Laura Graveline at Dartmouth
College, who could
tell you of the
dimension and brand? Good luck.
2) DALLAS
MUSEUM
We have compact shelves which
include one range that is shallower than
the others (long story not worth going into). The shelf height is
adjustable, so not an issue, but the depth only accommodates about 9”
before
intruding on the books on the opposite side, or sticking out over the
front
edge. We are able to stop the aisle short of crushing the books (lost
about 2” of aisle in the process), but the 12” deep shelves are much
more
appropriate to the art books and even then, some are too long (but not
tall)
and have to be shelved spine side down. We do have closed stacks, so
this
is all workable for us, but I would highly recommend lobbying for
deeper
shelves if you can -- or a lot of extra room in the oversize
collections area!
3) Glendale
Public Library
We have compact shelving in a staff
access only area. We are just
beginning to reevaluate the storage of our oversized materials in this
area.
Our compact shelving shelves are 15" high and 12" deep which allows
us to keep items that in regular stacks would be "oversized" in
compact shelving. We then have a section of the compact shelving
shelves for
really oversized items up to 36" high, but still only 12" deep
(although we do let them hang out a couple of inches and have to be
careful not
to close that section all the way). Anything that is too deep or too
tall we
have to keep flat.
4) Kohler Art
Library
We have separate regular and
oversize ranges. The regular size books have
regular size
compact shelving and the oversize have oversize compact shelving....
<>
5) YALE
Here, in the YCBA Reference Library, we have two
different
types of compact shelving. Our 'regular', monograph collex on our main
floor is
shelved in standard sized compact shelving (9.5/12.5) and the oversized
monographs (folio, etc) are shelved in in standard, non-compact
shelves.
However, upstairs, on our mezzanine, we have a different type of
compact
shelving which houses our photo archive (in archival boxes), as well as
runs of
serials and exhibition catalogs. This compact shelving is slightly more
industrial in appearance and in size. It is made of metal and has
movable
shelves that are about 13"dx12"h (but as mentioned, the height is
adjustable). You should take a business trip up to our library so we
can show
you! Until then, hope that helps at least a bit~
6) Dumbarton Oaks Research Library
If you are not having to deal with existing
compact
shelving, but instead are in the process of specifying new shelving,
then just
spec the needed amount of oversize ranges. We did miles (literally) of
Spacesaver compact shelving on the lowest level of our new building and
about ¼
of that level is filled with ranges where the shelves are 12 inches
deep and
they are set far enough apart to place 16” tall books on them without
stress.
I’d be happy to dig out some
written information on exactly what we specified
if that would be useful, or I can answer questions over the phone, but
I don’t
want to dump details on you if you are coping with an existing
installation
that cannot be retrofit with deeper shelves. I don’t have a good
solution
for that kind of problem, but for new installations
I sort of feel like I’ve seen
it all at one time or another over the 7 years of planning,
construction, and
first year of occupancy of a new facility.
<>7) Philbrook Museum of Art
Are you dealing with existing shelving units? If
not,
you should be able to order shelf units that are 12" deep and can be
adjusted for height. Our compactible units are old (1979), but we
ordered
shelf units 24" deep (12" per side), and have set a standard height
per shelf at about 13-1/2". The units have covered tops. These
gives us 5 shelves per unit, while we have 6 shelves per unit in the
regular
shelving (non-compactible), but these do not have covered tops. If your shelf units are a total of
18" deep
(9" per side), you might be able to utilize the entire shelf unit (as
long
as there are no obstructions in the middle) for oversized books.
Although, I suppose that you would still have the shelf height issue.
I
would definitely see if you could order shelving that is standard for
art
books.
<>8)
8) Indianapolis Museum
of Art
We moved into the new library space 2.5 years ago.
I
requested compact shelving for the entire coollection and got it! After
interviewing a few companies, we decided to work with the company Space
Savers. They are excellent, I worked with them before.
It seems that you are most concerend with shelf
height
and width. Our regular shelves are 14 and 15 inches high and 13 inches
deep. The oversized shelves are 7 inches high and 15 inches
deep. All books that do not fit on regular shelves go to the
oversized sections. Some very tall portfolios are shelved
"through" using the oversized shelf on the other side, too.
All units (for regular sized books as well as oversized books) do not
close tight but leave a space of about 8 inches open to prevent books
that are
sticking out to get damaged. Depending on your needs, you can
customize everything.
It also depends on your space and how much your
floor can
carry. We had some problems with the latter issue.
The whole system is electronic, I did not want a
cranking
system for several reasons. Our system also has a parking mode, i.e.
during the night we are able to space out all units for air
circulation.
Laser beams at the bottom and waist high prevent the units to close
when somebody
is in the stacks. I also asked for reference shelves in the stacks.
They
are pull-out shelves underneath a regular shelf spaced every 3 row and
a height
of 37 inches (comfortable reading height.
<>9) Hawaii
I know of one art library where
deep compact shelving was installed. It
is more like industrial shelving rather than library shelving. The
librarian is
away for two weeks, but I'll ask him email you when he comes back if
you like.
10) Toledo Museum of Art
<>We
have compact shelving in our closed stacks here at the Toledo Museum of Art. Our first units were purchased about 20 years ago
for the periodical
collection. We ordered 12-inch-wide shelving 24
inch
double-sided) and continued that practice when we purchased more in 1992 at the time
that we moved to a new building. The shelving
is also adjustable
height-wise and we have a few places where they 15 inches apart.
<>
Really oversized materials in the open stacks (anything over 36 c.m.) goes
horizontally on flat, cantilevered shelves that are 18 inches wide.
On those single-faced units, we requested 10 shelves per unit.
Oversized volumes in the closed stacks simply have to be shelved through to the other
side (not so great, but we've made it work) because we didn't
purchase any 18-inch (36 inch double-faced) units. It
does reduce the
used of the rest of the shelving in areas.
<>I hope
you don't have to settle for anything less - it will ruin your
collection.
11) DUKE UNIVERISITY
At the Lilly, our compact shelving is Spacesaver,
and the
depth of our shelves are 11" The height is completely adjustable;
most of ours are set a 14".
one of that helps you, I guess, unless
there's still time to change models. We do maintain folio shelving
section shelving (there there issue is that only every other aisle is
useable
since folio uses both sides of the shelving for one book).
Occasionally
we will lay a book on its side on either the top or bottom shelf, which
are not
used. In one case, we created a slender shelf of about 6" high on
the very bottom to hold books lengthwise that would otherwise be
contained in
the row.
12) Museum
of Modern Art
I can give you the basic breakdown of our compact
shelving
here at MoMA. Keep in mind that we
collect exclusively modern and contemporary art books, so most of our
items
would be classified as oversize in a general academic library. Currently we have 36 ranges of 12" deep
shelving with a clearence height of 12".
We have 8 ranges of 15" deep shelving which have a clearence
height
of 18", although we could probably get away with a 15" clearence for
the majority of the books on these shelves.
Finally, we have 4 "flat" ranges to store extremely large
items. These flat ranges have a depth of
23.5" and each individual bay has a width of 34". Because
all of our shelves are almost
completely full at this time, I think it is safe to say that our 12"
deep
shelving accomodates approximately 75% of our collection, while our 15"
deep shelving accomodates around 17% of our collection, and our
"flat" shelving accomodates approximately 8% of our collection. I hope this information is of some help to
you. Please feel free to email me with
any other questions. We are currently
preparing to move from Queens back to Manhattan,
so we have accumulated lots of detailed statistics about our collection
and
compact shelving. Good luck with the
conversion,
13) Philadelphia
Museum of Art
We are currently getting ready to move into a new
library
building and our entire collection will be in compact shelving. All of
our
shelving will be 12" deep (width as you call it) to accommodate the
generally larger size for art books. The shelf height is larger as
well, with
14 1/2" openings. We also have an oversize section, still 12" deep
but with height openings of 21
3/4". Everything over this size goes to folio. It
looks like you may have to put an awful
lot into folio. Is there no chance you can negotiate larger shelving
for art
materials? Good luck!
14) FOLGER Library
We opted to have 15-in. deep double-face compact
shelving
throughout our Art Vault (including the one-inch gap in the middle,
that makes
for a straight-through shelving depth of 31 inches for the big flat
books). The
vendor referred to the 15-in. depth as "legal size" since it's the
right depth for legal-folder document boxes. Our shelves (Elecompack
brand) are
adjustable every two inches.
Although we considered having a mix of
regular-depth shelves
and 15-in. ones, the logistics of reclassifying books into small and
medium
(and then finding them efficiently afterwards) weren't worth the
trouble.
<><>One problem we did have: the vendor didn't grasp the
fact that art books are generally heavier than
"normal" books, and many of them are huge.
In order to reduce the number of uprights needed, he made each shelf
wider than
he should have. Although he assured us they wouldn't sag under the
weight of
the books, they immediately did. We've been trying ever since to
reinforce
them, and finally gave up on getting help from the original vendor
15) Johns
Hopkins University
We have compact shelving for the bulk of our
Classics
collection, but not art. The recurring problem here involved materials
that are frequently consulted, requiring access to multiple volumes at
one
time. In art, I'd expect that to be catalogues raisonnes, lexicons,
and
(depending how you have things classified) corpora of vases,
inscriptiones,
etc... I'd expect folios to be troublesome too. The Classics
faculty HATE the compact shelves with a fiery passion of a thousands
suns
(smile...only a slight exaggeration).
<>We've also had trouble keeping the shelves
themselves fully
functional. The electronic ones seem to malfunction more often than
one
would like.
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