Compact Book Storage: Solutions Utilizing Conventional Methods

THES P A C E P R O B L E M S of large collections as well as those of libraries that have almost reached their capacity are obvious. What has been belatedly recognized are the signscant secondary problems and costs that are involved. Collections containing a significant number of necessary but little-used books are an impediment to the patrons’ accessibility to titles. Such collections increase the costs of public service and maintenance, necessitate extensive shifting with subsequent damage to the books, and in general diminish the quality and quantity of patron satisfaction. Consequently, space as a commodity in the library has been subjected to increasingly refined ana1ysis.l Of all areas of the library, the bookstacks have undergone perhaps the most careful scrutiny, resulting in various solutions or combination of solutions which include weeding and discarding, decentralization, the transfer of part of the collection, storage and the compact shelving of the collection. Weeding is difficult and expensive. The library clientele’s negative reaction to material withdrawn from the collection is apt to be inappropriate to the use and/or value of the item, thus this technique has had little appeal for most librarians. While little-used but valuable books must not be discarded in a cavalier manner, neither should timidity allow material of no value to be retained. Discarding at the same, or approximately the same, rate as material is acquired is another solution, but few situations exist which permit this alternative to be practiced. Like weeding, discarding is expensive, particularly in terms of staff time, i.e., in selecting and in changing bibliographic records. The decentralization of the collection is a more acceptable ap-