Collection Review Guidelines
The University of Sydney has a strong tradition of developing library collections capable of fostering effective learning as well as supporting diverse and extensive research. These collections are valued highly by the University and have a continuing role in the support of scholarship.
Major renovation of the Fisher Library will occur between late 2011 and the end of 2012. The project involves renewal of the basic infrastructure services (air-conditioning, lifts, lighting, plumbing etc) and extensive redesign and refurbishment of all levels of the building. The infrastructure work is necessary to ensure that the building is compliant with the current Building Code of Australia (BCA) and with applicable occupational health and safety and disability access requirements. These are legislative requirements with which the University must comply.
The implications are extensive and will result in the loss of about half of the shelving capacity - the equivalent of 26 kilometres. Aisles between shelving rows need to be widened from the existing 800mm to at least 1200mm and in some cases to 1500mm. This will require the removal of every second row of shelving in the stack. In addition, the height of the shelving has to be reduced by one shelf to comply with occupational health and safety requirements.
In order to complete the renovation project as quickly and as cheaply as possible, it will be necessary to release an entire floor of the building to the builders at a time. Simultaneously, the builders will need access to space on each floor throughout the building for the installation of new lift wells and toilets. Services will continue throughout the project although there will be a reduction in the number of study spaces, some disruption due to construction noise and access, and the collections will need to be moved.
A number of alternatives have been considered including:
- expanding the existing library store – this is not feasible as the site is required for the new School of Business and the collections have to be relocated
- using Fisher to store all of the volumes currently in the building and in the store - this would require virtually the entire building to be devoted to shelving and would displace the 7,000 + students and staff who use the library each day
- reconfiguring the stack for closed access – this solution would not address the occupational health and safety issues and would not provide sufficient space for the collections
- installing a robotic storage facility similar to that built by Macquarie University – the major issue is that a suitable site is not available on either the Camperdown or Darlington campuses and there is insufficient funding available
- erecting a storage facility on University land – the only available site is at Camden and there are development consent issues as well as a long lead time for building
- purchasing or renting a warehouse – suitable premises cannot be found and the initial capital funding is not available
- replacing the static shelving in the stack with compactus shelving – there are restrictions on the floor loadings and insufficient capacity is achievable – some compactus shelving will be provided on level 1
- removing all non-library activities from the building - this would provide more than 1,000 square metres but there is no other suitable space in the University for these activities and it would not solve the building code or occupational health and safety issues
- utilizing a commercial off-site storage facility capable of housing volumes in the existing store and low use volumes transferred from the Fisher and other libraries
Option 9 has been identified as the most practical given the short time in which a solution must be implemented, the quality of storage available and the cost. This option includes a retrieval and delivery service comparable with the current service provided from the Library store.
Closed storage, particularly if it is off-site, may not be the most desirable solution but there are no viable alternatives. It is a solution used by major research libraries throughout the world. The funding provided by the Federal Government must be spent by early 2013, and the building code and accessibility issues must be addressed. About 58% of the monographs have not been borrowed in the past 5 years and large sections of the journal collection have been duplicated with digital online versions. The collection includes more than 4 kilometres of print journals that experience little or no use as the Library provides access via online subscriptions. Issues of many of these journals are available exclusively online from 2002 as receipt of print volumes ceased once archival access to the digital versions was guaranteed.
Storage Facility
The University is negotiating with external companies for the long-term supply of purpose-built storage facilities and for the provision of retrieval and delivery services. The facility will be located within 1 hour driving time of the Camperdown-Darlington campus and will provide environmental and security conditions of a higher standard than the existing library store. Members of the University will be able to request volumes from storage to be delivered to the University of Sydney library of their choice. Articles and chapters can be scanned and delivered by email. In general, volumes requested prior to noon will be delivered the next working day. All volumes newly transferred to storage will be listed on the online catalogue which will be enhanced to facilitate browsing by Dewey number. Around 10% or 160,000 titles of the Fisher collection are not listed on the online catalogue. The bibliographic details of these titles will be captured during the review process and used to recatalogue to international standard. A review of access policies will be undertaken to recognize the large amount of the collection that will be in closed storage. At present, there are restrictions on the request of items from storage.
The review of collections, and the relocation of a large number of items to storage, represents a significant change in perception and use of the Fisher Library. While recognizing the desirability of maintaining open access to the collections, the reality is that there is insufficient space given the constraints related to building code compliance and the need to provide improved study space. Disruption associated with the renovation is unavoidable although every effort will be made to minimize the inconvenience and limit the time involved. The collaboration and forbearance of the University community will be invaluable as the project progresses. In the end, the renovations will restore the Fisher Library to pre-eminence among Australian university libraries.
These guidelines are part of an iterative process aimed at achieving the best solution for what is a very difficult challenge. Refinement of the guidelines will continue throughout the collections review process and comments are welcome.
Academic recommendation for change to item location
If you want to recommend the change of an item location please fill in the following form.