Book People Archive

Re: On Books and The Housing of Them

>From: "David S. Carter" <superman@[redacted]>
>Rolling compact shelving is very big in library storage these days,
>though usually not in public access areas. Building new storage
>facilities is a much larger capital outlay than installing compact
>shelving.

It is really expensive, the only reason libraries are able to pay for it is 
that the only alternative is to build a new building to house a bigger 
collection or throw useful things out.  And it's hard to please patrons with 
it, since as long as someone is using an aisle, no one else can open up 
another.  There's a portion of Memorial Library at the Univ. of Wisconsin 
that utilizes the electronic version of these shelves, and people never seem 
to figure out that they're holding up other people who need to retrieve 
something.  And it's always a little disconcerting walking on those panels, 
wondering what would happen if they were to fail.  Oh, well.  At least my 
library is built in such a way that these shelves would be impossible to 
install.  We have shelves that run through the height of the building and 
have glass floors between levels.  (Gals, don't wear your dresses here!)  
They're not very convenient for anyone who's disabled, but then we're more 
than willing to retrieve things for patrons.

--Andrew Lee Hunn