Abstract
All collecting institutions reckon with the fundamental question of how to store collections. The answer to this question often begins and ends with pragmatic decisions: collections are stored wherever staff can find room. Storage is an operational necessity but it also needs attention at a strategic level. Storage serves as a fundamental and functional piece of the institution’s plan for access to and preservation of its collections: storage at its best becomes proactive curation of the collection and requires a good knowledge of the condition and quality of the collection. In this special issue of IFLA Journal, we have attempted to bring together articles depicting a variety of approaches to storage for physical and digital collections that are adapted to the particular constraints and opportunities of different types of libraries. We hope that this collection will show how storage choices affect the goals of libraries across the spectrum, from preservation to access.
As we brought together these articles, we found that there is a history of library science that deserves to be told from the viewpoint of storage. Historically, most classification systems have grouped related categories of materials together on the shelf, but several systems also tried to group materials near their service points in particular buildings. All libraries have faced some version of this question as they decide between on-site and off-site storage or settle on the optimal number of copies to collect. Some models of storage, such as the Open Archival Information System, have attempted to make a similar connection between the elements of a digital storage and delivery system to guide development of effective and reliable digital archives.
The answers to these questions are as many and varied as the communities that libraries serve. In describing the classification system he developed for the New York Public Library, a system intended to place subject collections close to their respective reading rooms, John Shaw Billings wrote that “it is not logical so far as the succession of different departments in relation to the operations of the human mind is concerned; that it is not recommended for any other library, and that no librarian of another library would approve of it.”
The book stacks that Billings had in mind were themselves the result of a strategic decision about how to store books, and attempted to make the best use of the best technologies of their era. They were designed by Bernard Green and first used at the Library of Congress (USA), being soon adopted by the Ontario Legislative Library (Canada), New York Public Library (USA), and Widener Memorial Library of Harvard University (USA). These stacks, which were manufactured by Snead & Co. Ironworks, were intended to fulfill a program of requirements that includes many aspects of library services: Accommodation for books of every variety, shape, and binding; Direct and immediate access to every volume with a minimum distance to travel; Location in close communication with cataloging, reading, and delivery rooms; Thorough illumination, either natural or artificial, by day and night; A constant supply of fresh air and an evenly regulated temperature, in order to prevent the deterioration of both paper and bindings; The greatest possible freedom from dust; Facilities for proper classification, arrangement, and rearrangement; Maximum development of book space and provision for indefinite expansion.
What resulted from these requirements was stacks consisting of a framework of cast-iron supports which carried bookshelves and platforms that subdivided the storage area into decks between 7 and 7.5 feet high. At the turn of the 20th century in central Europe, very similar considerations led to a standardized, flexible, self-supporting system of steel shelving that improved the ratio of storage to space compared to previous models of shelving. These systems were installed in numerous European library buildings between 1889 and the 1920s, and some of them are still in use today.
Improvements in storage and space ratios continue to this day. As we go to press with this special issue, the Library of Congress is completing construction of a new storage facility from a design originating at Harvard University and widely adopted by American libraries. These high-density facilities embody a strategic decision to change the program of requirements—with collections being located off-site and less accessible to the reading room—towards improving storage density and achieving better preservation outcomes. The preservation environments of these facilities use technologies of our current era to reduce light exposure, temperature, and humidity, and carefully manage fire risks. 1
Although our authors in this issue are focused on the present day, it would be interesting to examine the interrelationships between the continents in terms of the professionalization of the storage of books and the lines of development that have led to modern requirements. Further advances in storage design include facilities technology—low oxygen storage, for example, and automation of storage systems along with further increases in storage density—as well as operational models that share the costs of storage as a preservation function through shared print archiving or distributed digital archives that ensure there will be many copies of data to avoid loss.
The flexibility afforded by digital storage and access has a fertilizing effect here. With a growing range of digital library options and the desire to support research that uses both digital and physical holdings together for their distinctive characteristics, there are intriguing possibilities for the purpose and design of library storage systems. In ways that are guided by the goals of the library and enabled by the technologies and other resources available to them, librarians continue to embody strategic decisions in their choice of storage methods. They ask: What happens when libraries envision a new service model, and how can the library rethink the repository’s purpose in terms of preservation of the holdings themselves and the services that exist around the repository?
For one answer to this question, in the introductory article of this issue, we have invited Peter Whitehead and colleagues at the National Library of New Zealand (Te Puna Mātauranga o Aotearoa) to tell us about the Tāhuhu: Preserving the Nation’s Memory Programme, a large collaborative effort to update the buildings and services for the National Library, Archives New Zealand, and Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision. Whitehead describes this entire plan as tāhuhu, the “backbone” of the whare tupuna or “meeting house.” The backbone is a fundamental structure and serves the National Library’s program as a powerful metaphor of support for the mahi (“work”) that is planned over the next six to seven years, which includes the heke (“ribs”) as the individual projects within the backbone of tāhuhu. The entire project grows out of thoughtful planning to promote use and ensure the sustainability of the collections and the infrastructure required for their preservation.
The Tāhuhu project includes plans for a new, resilient, purpose-built facility for the Heke Rua Archives in Wellington to preserve memory of government and taonga (“treasured materials”). This will include support of best-practice storage, conservation, and digitization services. Alterations to the National Library’s building are envisioned to enable co-location and greater collaboration between the Archives, National Library, and Ngā Taonga in a vibrant new campus-like setting where visitors can access and learn about the nation’s recorded and documentary heritage all in one place. In addition, a fit-for-purpose, resilient, and sustainable facility in the lower North Island is planned to provide preservation storage across the National Library, Ngā Taonga, and Archives, with the potential for wider sector use.
In planning this special issue, we discussed the aforementioned questions and many other ways of thinking about storage. Ultimately, we decided to pose the question of how storage—and the policy-driven rules and services associated with it—plays a strategic function in libraries. Storage is something libraries must do, a cost they must bear, so they must manage that cost and, ideally, benefit from that investment. The storage projects of large collecting institutions like the Berlin State Library and Library of Congress help to break ground and advance the field, but the way national and research libraries solve these problems cannot be taken as a turnkey answer for every library of every size in every place. In this issue, we strive to include a variety of articles that, while not comprehensive, provide many points on the map, showing solutions from libraries in a variety of geographic locations and with a variety of different levels of resources available to them.
Two articles describe housing projects for collections in distinctive formats that take into account decisions for user and access services: “Dunhuang scrolls: Innovative storage solutions at the British Library” and “The David O Selznick storyboard rehousing project: A case study.” In both, libraries reckon with the challenge of how to create safe storage housings for these materials—scrolls in one case, storyboards for films in the other—and to design those housings in a way that made the materials easy to serve to users while also being efficient to produce. This efficiency is measured in terms of labor as well as choice of materials, and raises important practical questions about the level of skill required for this work, and how best to apply the skills of various staff.
Another article, “Preservation storage in a flood damage mitigation effort at the National Library of France,” also describes innovative housing solutions based on strategic decision-making, but, in this instance, preservation staff designed storage containers with a different purpose in mind. Like many libraries, the Bibliothèque nationale de France must contend with increasingly frequent floods driven by a changing environment, and the book-storage containers described in this article are intended to facilitate the rapid evacuation of collections.
The environment and the impact of the climate is also the focus of “Curation of manuscripts in the tropical savanna climate of north-eastern India.” This article provides a review of issues facing a distinctive set of archives in a region that has not received significant discussion in the literature but whose risks and constraints can be recognized around the world: a warm and often humid environment, with little access to the infrastructure needed for heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning systems to mitigate these risks.
A pair of articles reminds us that history often provides useful clues in our culture and environment for how to work in the future. “Applicability of traditional storage methods in Indonesia for today’s conservation practice” reviews the outcomes from several conservation projects in Java, Indonesia, that rely on traditional cultural methods to care for collections in a museum of contemporary art, a traditional puppet theater, a museum of traditional art, and an archive. In “Natural ingredients for a bacteria-free library collection,” we have a review of another look at traditional methods that make use of various herbs and spices to preserve reading materials, and their comparison to fumigation or other chemical treatments.
These articles on storage decisions in subtropical climates should also prompt us to think about sustainable development. There is an ecological fingerprint required by the air-conditioned storage systems that are the standard practice in the western hemisphere. A change in thinking is taking place, and libraries are revisiting the assumptions that guided the construction of storage spaces for decades in order to look for more ecologically sustainable solutions. The ideas and practices in countries that do not have the same level of energy resources and financing options thus take on a completely different relevance as we give collective attention to sustainable and suitable preservation on a global scale.
Although much of this special issue focuses on physical collections, usually paper-based, libraries and archives face significant storage challenges for other media. “Identification and storage of plastics in libraries and archives” provides an overview of a variety of plastics in library collections and guidance on identifying the most high-risk instances of these materials.
Two other articles turn from physical collections to digital collections. Digital collections are a rapidly growing category of library collections and often framed as a new type of content with new challenges. As this issue goes to press—itself a digital process—it is just over 50 years after the first Advanced Research Projects Agency Network transmission between universities (the University of California, Los Angeles to Stanford in 1969) and roughly 30 years since the first web browsers were introduced (the World Wide Web in 1990, NCSA Mosaic in 1993, and Netscape Navigator in 1994). Digital content is a well-established part of the information environment and, for many librarians, the predominant information format in use throughout their lives and their professional careers.
In this issue, we touch both poles of digital libraries: an aspect of our work that increases access to collections through new methods and an ever-growing storage project of its own. The article “Experimenting with 360° and virtual reality representations as new access strategies to vulnerable physical collections: Two case studies at the KB, National Library of the Netherlands” builds a bridge between physical and digital storage, describing the early stages of testing the applicability of 360° imaging to support virtual access to the special collection storage and using virtual reality to render pop-up books for educational purposes. “Deciding how to decide” introduces the Digital Preservation Storage Criteria and an accompanying Usage Guide to support organizations in a variety of situations in preparing for digital preservation. This article explains the Criteria and their recent updates to map them to relevant international digital preservation and information technology standards. In addition, the article reviews the latest updates to the Usage Guide and gives examples of using the Criteria in various contexts to help organizations apply the Criteria to their own situations.
Around the world, libraries are making conscientious decisions about their service models. These decisions, shaped by each library’s resources and goals, are often realized in a storage strategy: Where will this library keep this item, and how will it be kept? While this special issue cannot provide a complete and comprehensive review or study of the variety of storage choices made by libraries, we hope that it provides interested readers with enough examples of collections from around the world to stimulate careful thought about how storage decisions factor into the life of the library. They all demonstrate how the preservation of our collective memory—whether in physical or digital form—is recognizable as a common task of libraries. Libraries embody a fundamental social mandate for preservation, and this is the special responsibility of library professionals. The need for critical attention to preservation, and that it plays a strategic function in libraries, is especially significant against the backdrop of the fateful issue of “sustainability,” which confronts us day by day with increasing challenges in so many aspects of our lives and livelihoods.
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Acknowledgments are due to many people for their help in assembling this special issue. We are grateful to Stephen Witt, editor of IFLA Journal, for his wise and reasonable advice and his unwavering patience. Sónia Casquiço, conservadora-restauradora (“conservator-restorer”) at the Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, provided valuable support for the review of the papers. Finally, we must acknowledge the enduring contribution of Jeanne Drewes, who originated the idea of this special issue, was instrumental in developing the call for proposals, and has assisted us throughout the process of bringing this to print.