Special Collections and University Archives

Special Collections and University Archives
Summer closure, 2009
End of Project Summary Report
November 5, 2009

Special Collections and University Archives (SCUA) had a partial closure during summer term 2009 to allow all staff and students to work on some department-wide projects. The three overall objectives were (a) to increase available storage space, (b) improve storage of and access to collections, and (c) work through various departmental backlogs, and to fulfill these objectives without creating an inconvenience to SCUA patrons.

While we had many successes, the most notable achievements were: (a) shifted the entire thesis/dissertation collection from offsite storage to Knight (700+ linear feet); (b) added 350+ shelves, reconfigured 1,600+ shelves and shifted 7,000+ boxes, resulting in 2,325 linear feet of available shelving at Knight (with total available space for  approximately 5,000 boxes at Knight and Baker); and (c) finalized the processing of nearly 1,000 linear feet of Manuscripts and University Archives materials; greatly improved storage of and access to a number of important collections, including the Jackson County Records, the Paul Wiener architectural drawings, and the Henry Beau musical score collection.

As a result of these accomplishments, SCUA is in a better position to serve its patrons and to continue to collect, preserve and provide access to important documents and historical material. The progress made over the summer has also put SCUA into a good position for future gains, such as writing well-defined collection development and de-accessioning policies, establishing workflows to effectively process incoming accessions and de-accessioned materials, and implementing a more effective space management program.

Here’s a few pictures of our progress noted in the last post.

What part of the 294 consecutive empty shelves looks like:

Getting part of the Shiloh collection in order:

President Fleming collection labeled and shifted:

We were closed for the last 7 business days (June 15-19 and 22-23), to begin the various summer projects for SCUA.

The main focus for these days was to:

1. Clean the anteroom of any extraneous materials (hold materials, collections to be looked at, reshelves, etc.).
2. Shift collections on the 6^th deck to provide space for the theses collection to be moved from Baker. This included numerous small shifts and several larger shifts, as well as moving one large collection to Baker (Shiloh).
3. Shift other areas in the stacks to open additional space.
4. Begin processing general departmental cleanup (former staff materials, gift books, photo vault cleanup).

We were very successful in these efforts. Some of our accomplishments were:

1. The anteroom was 80-85% cleaned, with the remaining materials noted and in queue to be worked on in the coming weeks.
2. 6 ½ ranges (294 consecutive shelves) were cleared on the 6^th deck for the theses. Some of the more major tasks associated with this were:
   1. The unprocessed Shiloh collection (160+ boxes) was removed, matched to a box list, relabeled, and moved to Baker. A very few stray items remain to be moved next week.
   2. The President Fleming collection (~235 MS boxes) was labeled and shifted to another location on the 6^th deck.
   3. 282 RS boxes of theses were brought from Baker to Knight and put on the empty shelves. 95 of these boxes have already been unpacked and the individual volumes lined up on the shelves.
   4. Significant shifting has been accomplished on the 3^rd deck, with an effective 14 new shelves added to range 3/G-H. These initial 3^rd deck shifts will provide space for moving the UA REF collection form the 4^th deck to the 3^rd deck.
   5. Good progress has been made by each individual staff member on processing materials of personal expertise. (e.g., Heather nearly completed the outstanding processing of the voluminous Loy collection, Bruce has sent 4 carts of unprocessed books to Acquisitions, significant progress has been made in the photo vault, etc.).

Welcome to the Special Collections and University Archives Summer Blog!

As some of you have noticed, SCUA is closed every Monday and Tuesday this summer and portions of intersessions.  Please check our Google Calendar and Hours webpage for updated hours and information.

All staff will be busy on cleanup projects designed to maximize our
available space and organize legacy collections so we can provide
better service for our patrons.  Summer-long projects will include significant shifting of collections between the Baker Downtown Center (our off site storage facility) and Knight Library.

We plan to use this blog to highlight some of these projects to keep our patrons, students, and colleagues informed of our progress.