They have 73 libraries, over 16 million volumes, a a staff of 1,200, and an operating budget of $160 million. And yet, shelf space is in high demand in Cambridge. Anticipating this problem, Harvard University built the Harvard Book Depository in 1986. This facility is not a library, but it helps the libraries function better.
-The depository processes books as metadata. To the facility, it's a series of barcodes.
-The facility receives approximately 500,000 new books each year, circulates 220,000, and has a retreival rate of 100%. (In a library, people find what they're looking for about 50% of the time.)
-Patrons request books from the online catalog, and they are delivered to the school's library the following day. (If you're an early riser and request a book before 6:45am, it will be at your school's library by the afternoon.)
-Items are sorted and shelved by height. Shelf height is calibrated to the height of books on the shelf. There's no wasted airspace.
-Books can be maintained in their arrival condition for 244 years. Temperature in the stacks is 50 degrees. Humidity is 35%.
-While the facility was originally intended for books with low circulation numbers, the depository now holds 45% of Harvard's collections.
-The depository is located about 30 miles outside Cambridge, in an area known for warehouses, where rents are less expensive.
-In fact, it's helpful to think of the Depository as a warehouse. No librarians work there. There are concrete floors, 30 foot shelves, and orange warning strips to guide the forklifts that retrieve the books.
-Visitors are not welcome, not even the professors whose books are held in the Depository. Approximately 15 visitors are allowed access each year, and they are examining the facility, not the books.
-Why not digitize? I'll talk about this more later, but digital data needs to be read regularly to make sure it's readable by current machinery. As technology changes, workers must open each file and save it manually. Technologists are working to develop a way to scale this operation. Additionally, there's still a legal gray area when it comes to converting files.
The future of libraries? I hope not. The future of information storage? Potentially.
Thoughts?
-Patrons request books from the online catalog, and they are delivered to the school's library the following day. (If you're an early riser and request a book before 6:45am, it will be at your school's library by the afternoon.)
-Items are sorted and shelved by height. Shelf height is calibrated to the height of books on the shelf. There's no wasted airspace.
-Books can be maintained in their arrival condition for 244 years. Temperature in the stacks is 50 degrees. Humidity is 35%.
-While the facility was originally intended for books with low circulation numbers, the depository now holds 45% of Harvard's collections.
-The depository is located about 30 miles outside Cambridge, in an area known for warehouses, where rents are less expensive.
-In fact, it's helpful to think of the Depository as a warehouse. No librarians work there. There are concrete floors, 30 foot shelves, and orange warning strips to guide the forklifts that retrieve the books.
-Visitors are not welcome, not even the professors whose books are held in the Depository. Approximately 15 visitors are allowed access each year, and they are examining the facility, not the books.
-Why not digitize? I'll talk about this more later, but digital data needs to be read regularly to make sure it's readable by current machinery. As technology changes, workers must open each file and save it manually. Technologists are working to develop a way to scale this operation. Additionally, there's still a legal gray area when it comes to converting files.
The future of libraries? I hope not. The future of information storage? Potentially.
Thoughts?
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