The University's ongoing renovation of the Ivy Stacks - an off-Grounds shelving site managed by the University Library system - has placed the bulk of the facility's 750,000 items in warehouses across the state.
But as shelves groan under the weight of the University's book collection, the Ivy Stacks renovation is "critical" for the continued growth of the University Library's collection, Director of Interlibrary Services Paul Rittelmeyer said.
The renovation of the stacks began July 1, Rittelmeyer said. The facility, located about two miles from Central Grounds on Old Ivy Road, opened in 1995 to house rarely circulated library items that Alderman and Clemons Libraries, already filled to capacity, could not hold.
But fifteen years later, the Ivy Stacks have also run out of shelving space. "Shelving space is an issue for all major research libraries, and we're no exception," Rittelmeyer said.
To help alleviate this problem, the University plans to install mobile shelves in the Ivy Stacks to double the site's capacity.
"In an ideal world, the plan would be to build a second facility," Rittelmeyer said. He estimated that building a second warehouse would have cost $15 million. Installing a new shelving system, however, will cost the University a projected $4,882,000.
The last of the facility's existing shelves came down yesterday, and the materials normally held at Ivy Stacks have been relocated. Some items are currently in the closed stacks of Alderman - that is, areas of the library not open to public browsing, although patrons may request items that librarians then retrieve. More fragile materials are being held at the State Records Center at the Library of Virginia in Richmond.
The majority of items from the stacks, however, have been relocated to a warehouse in Orange, Va., Rittelmeyer said, rendering them unavailable and forcing the University Library to request these items from other libraries when needed. But despite this additional challenge, Rittelmeyer said the library staff would go through both the "usual" and "unusual motions" of the interlibrary loan process - including contacting authors directly - to satisfy book-hungry patrons.
"We've had these stacks closed since July, for four - going on five - months," he said. "We've been ably to satisfy almost every request with just a few bumps in the road."
Third-year Law student Andrew Winerman experienced one of those bumps. When working on a research paper for his Urban Law and Policy class, he searched for a master's thesis normally housed in the Ivy Stacks.
"There was no way for them to get it - they're in boxes all over the state," Winerman said. "A lot of masters' theses are in the Ivy Stacks, and they're all inaccessible now."
He said he was told it would be 18 months before he could have the source he was looking for. Eventually, he sent an e-mail the author to obtain a copy himself.
"[Masters' theses] are classes of books that are predictably unique to the U.Va. collection," Winerman said. "They should have taken special care to make sure those were kept out of the books they shipped to inaccessible locations around Virginia for 18 months."
Despite the temporary inaccessibility caused by the renovation, Rittelmeyer said he thought "most, if not every request" for Ivy Stack items will be satisfied because they are not frequently in circulation. He estimated that the site receives about 350 requests per month.
Rittelmeyer said he hopes the renovated stacks will be "up and running" by February 2012.
"We'll be moving into the 21st century with this project," he said.
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