Beneath New York Public Library, Shelving Its Past for High-Tech Research Stacks
By TOM MASHBERG NOV. 15, 2015
Photo
The New York Public Library is creating a vast underground space for its research collection, after abandoning plans to move much of it to New Jersey. Credit: James Estrin/The New York Times
As they skate or snack in Bryant Park, visitors might dismiss the stately New York Public Library next door as a dog-eared relic in an age of digital information.
But unbeknown to most of them, 17 feet below ground, in a concrete bunker worthy of the White House, the library is expanding and updating one of the most sophisticated book storage systems in the world.
Since March, after abandoning a much-criticized plan to move the bulk of its research collection to New Jersey, the library has been working instead to create a high-tech space underground for the 2.5 million research works long held in its original stacks.
The books will begin arriving in April, and by the end of spring library officials expect to be using a new retrieval system to ferry the volumes and other materials from their 84 miles of subterranean shelving, loaded into little motorized carts — a bit like miniaturized mine cars carrying nuggets of research gold.
To fit all the books in the allotted space, the library will have to abandon its version of the Dewey Decimal System, in which shelving is organized by subject, in favor of a new “high-density” protocol in which all that matters is size.
Photo: Behind the library, under Bryant Park and the skating rink, a complex storage space is taking shape. Credit: James Estrin/The New York Times
Books will be stacked by height and tracked by bar code rather than by a subject-based system, making for some odd book fellows. “Best Food Writing 2013,” edited by Holly Hughes, for example, will be stored next to “War Dog: The No-Man’s Land Puppy Who Took to the Skies,” by Damien Lewis; and “Old Romanian Fairy Tales,” translated by Mirela Roznoveanu, will sit beside “The Hot Dog Companion: A Connoisseur’s Guide to the Food We Love,” by David Graulich.
Librarians nationwide are embracing size-based systems as they retool their research collections, which unlike books that circulate, cannot leave the premises or be browsed by hand.
“It’s a lot better,” said Carolyn Broomhead, the library’s research community manager. “Things don’t get squished together and are much easier to find and track.”………..(cont.) http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/16/books/beneath-new-york-public-library-shelving-its-past-for-high-tech-research-stacks.html?_r=1
Comments