Stacks Away

As if the deterioration of books were not enough for Harvard's library managers to worry about, the system is also confronting growing pains resulting from continued expansion in a fixed amount of shelf space.

"It doesn't look as if we can expand," says Doris M. Freitag, Conservator of the University Library.

Harvard's best answer to the overcrowding problem so far has been to construct a book storage facility in Southborough, Mass. The first module of the Harvard Depository, Inc. (HDI) will be able to hold 1.6 million books upon its completion in April. The site, which is a half-hour drive from the Yard, has room for nine more such units to be built as the collection grows.

As well as providing storage space for the University's 10.5 million-and-counting book collection, HDI is also "designed to provide the best possible environment for the secure preservation of materials," according to Sidney Verba '53, director of the University Library. The building will limit the rate of change in temperature and humidity and keep the air circulating more than in the libraries, says Robert A. Silverman, director of planning. "We've tried to take the long view on this." The facility is expected to meet the University's needs "into the next century," he says.

While the University is advancing the $2.5 million needed for construction of the facility, the HDI is expected to pay for itself with rents charged to Harvard and other libraries for the space their books will take up. Shelf space costs $2.40 a foot each year, with an average of 10 books per foot.

Library officials expect the facility to save the University money as well as books, since the cost of storing materials and retrieving them from HDI will be between one-fourth and one-third the cost of building new library space or storing elsewhere.

Libraries reserving space in the HDI include Baker, Langdell, and the University Archives. MIT also plans to store materials in the building. Silverman says that about half of the space had been reserved, with the rest expected to fill up by next year.

Library users will be able to take books out of the HDI on a daily or weekly basis. Books in the HDI will be bar-coded and catalogued in a computerized inventory control system similar to that which has been tested in Baker Library.

The HDI plans to make the best use possible of its 165,000 linear feet of storage space. Books will be kept in trays on the six-foot-deep shelves which both increase the storage space of the facility and "protect materials from the abrasion that often results from shifting volumes on a shelving surface," one library official says.

Previous solutions which Harvard has tried include a $500,000 Spacesaver shelving system which was installed in Pusey Library last spring. The library successfully doubled the storage space on one of its levels by taking out the aisles between the shelves, leaving one aisle for every 12 shelves.

However, this method of shelving would be impractical for a busy library, since only one row of shelves can be reached at a time, officials said.