September 29, 1994: Vol26n4: Beating 'the Squeeze' at Lockwood Library

By CHRISTINE VIDAL
Reporter Editor
The stacks in Lockwood just aren't what they used to be.
	They're full to the point of overflowing. And while a
well-developed library collection is important to the mission of a
university, a library that's too full isn't as useful as it should be.
When it reaches 80 percent capacity, experts say, a library is
considered dysfunctional.
	The capacity of Lockwood Library is at 100 percent.
	According to Judith Adams, director of Lockwood Library, the
facility houses 1.4 million volumes, and more than one million people
use the library and its resources each year. "Libraries become
dysfunctional when they're that full because you can't make room for
new books, can't shelve things because there's no room. Therefore, the
people who use the library can't use it well," she said. 
	But things are changing.
	In an effort to address the space shortage, the Redesign of
Lockwood Task Force was formed last year to develop plans for the
facility and the reorganization of the Lockwood collections. Members
of the task force include Loss Glazier, Will Hepfer, Cindy Seitz,
Karen Senglaup, Karen Smith and Maureen Stanko.
  Built in 1978, the Lockwood collection has grown each year, but no
serious renovation of the facility has ever taken place, Adams said.
The task force "planned a reorganization of the whole building so
material will be easier to use and will be more accessible," she said.
The reorganization also will make the library's electronic resources
more accessible.
	"The library has been in bad shape for four or five years
because of shelving capacity, but it's now reached the point of 100
percent capacity and it's hopeless unless we do something," Adams
said. "We don't have hope for new space so we have to deal with it
within the confines we have and there are things we can do,
obviously."
	Ideally, shelves in the library stacks should be roughly
one-third empty, and there should be empty shelves at the bottom,
according to Adams. But the bookshelves in Lockwood are so tightly
packed, additional books are piled on top of the full rows.
	To free up space in the stacks, Adams said, a section of the
basement formerly occupied by Canadian documents and some microfilm
files has been converted into a storage facility. These "closed
stacks" will be used to store low-use materials on 6,600 linear feet
of shelving, enough room to hold 53,000 volumes on double-wide
shelves. Only low-use, older volumes will be selected for storage, and
no journals will be moved.
	Materials in the "closed stacks" still will be available for
use, Adams said. Library staff "will retrieve volumes immediately upon
request so there will be no waiting and you won't have to come back to
the library. BISON will indicate that book is in storage," she said.
Request for books in the closed stacks also can be made by E-mail.
	"If we guess wrong and put materials in (the closed stacks)
that are requested more than once, we'll take them out of storage and
put them back on the shelves," Adams added.
	Library staff are in the process of selecting materials that
will go into storage. "Anything used in the last 10 to 15 years
probably will not go down (into storage)," Adams said.
	Materials in the closed stacks also will be available to
researchers on an as-needed basis. "If there's a need to browse in
some sets of materials, we will allow them to do that," she said.
"There's a lot of material that doesn't get used that has some
potential research use. Research interests on campus change as faculty
come and go."