College and Research Libraries LUCINDA CONGER The Annex Library of Princeton j University: The Development of a J Compact Storage Library Forced by the pressures of space to venture into compact storage, Princeton developed its unique "open stack'' compact storage library, the Annex Library, after examining modes of storage used by other li- braries. Influenced by the importance of maintaining good public re- lations with its users and of interfering as little as possible with existing cataloging practices, Princeton made "reversibility" the chief advan- tage of its selection and processing systems. This paper deals with the decisions made and the methods used to organize the Annex Li- brary, with the building itself, and the selection, cataloging, and re- trieval procedures. THE IDEA OF CoMPACT STORAGE AT PRINCETON THE PRINCETON UNIVERSITY LIBRARY sys- tem consists of a central building, the Harvey S. Firestone Library, in which the university's basic book collection is housed, and eighteen special subject collections located in buildings else- where on campus. The Firestone build- ing opened in 1948. Its open stack ar- rangement was designed to be flexible and expandable, but expansion for book shelving could only be carried so far. Provision had to be made for reading areas, carrels, and personnel offices; for expansion of the preparations areas and of the main card catalog. Gradually, with the growth of the book collections all over the campus, the Firestone building became a depository for ma- terials for which the subject libraries did not have room, and for books for which ' I Mrs. Conger is Annex Librarian, Fire- stone Library, Princeton University. 160 / future buildings are planned, as is the case with the Oriental language collec- tions. As early as 1959, the library admin- istration expressed concern about the problem of housing its burgeoning book collections. At the time, William S. Dix, the university librarian, pointed out in a memorandum to the faculty and trust- ees that the Firestone Library, which had opened only ten years earlier, would be filled to capacity by 1965, and that almost all of the special subject col- lections were already plagued by over- crowding. With the construction of new facilities, space pressure in many of the outside libraries would be eased consid- erably, but the situation in others and in Firestone would only worsen with in- creased acquisitions due to plans to broaden the curriculum and to expand the graduate school. Emergency measures had to be un- dertaken to forestall the anticipated overcrowding, since an addition to the Firestone building could not be made Annex Library of Princeton University I 161 immediately. Three alternatives were suggested: 1. participation in some cooperative storage or deposit venture with other libraries in this area, a procedure through which seldom-used volumes might be transferred to a jointly owned building not necessarily in Princeton; 2. the conversion of a part of the Fire- stone building into a closed-stack, compact storage area in which sel- dom-used books might be shelved ac- cording to size, without regard to classification and much more eco- nomically than in the present classi- fied arrangement; or 3. the erection somewhere on the edge of the campus of a comparatively in- expensive storage library for the hous- ing in compact fashion of our own seldom-used books. 1 Mr. Dix went on to analyze the ad- vantages and disadvantages of each al- ternative: The first is perhaps the most desirable, since it carries with it the possibility · of in- telligent cooperative acquisition policies which would serve through the years to re- duce library costs in all cooperating insti- tutions. Experience indicates, however, that there are tremendous difficulties to the actual realization of such a plan in this area. I shall make it my business to keep informed and to explore all possibilities which seem reasonable. The second alter- native, a compact storage area within the Firestone building, seems to me unwise; it would negate the whole educational phi- losophy behind the open-stack building and would use expensive space for a pur- pose which much less expensive space would serve. Therefore we have rejected this approach and propose that this build- -ing be considered a completely open-stack, classified library until it approaches satura- tion, when some policy of systematic re- tirement of less used volumes to other less accessible areas should be instituted. The third alternative, an inexpensive storage building on inexpensive University land, thus seems at the moment to be the most likely solution of the long-range growth problem. CoMPACT STORAGE ELsEWHERE Compact storage in the United States is a fairly new idea. In Great Britain and Europe, there is a long history of storing books by size in high shelving with narrow aisles. Books are arranged in fixed accession order, without regard to subject matter; direct access to books is necessarily closed to the public. In the United States, creation of coopera- tive storage facilities was considered as early as 1903 by President Eliot of Har- vard, but the idea did not develop until the 1940s when the New England De- posit Library was opened. 2 The partici- pating libraries could rent space in an inexpensive warehouse building located in the Brighton section of Boston and there deposit their little-used mono- graphs, newspapers, and periodicals in an arrangement of their own choosing. Each library keeps its own record of books deposited and contributes to a union catalog for the complete holdings of the building. Duplication of deposits could thus be avoided and valuable space spared. The Mid-West Library Center,3 es- tablished in 1951, stores books in six size groups on movable ranges. Now called the Center for Research Libraries, it ac- tually assumes the ownership of the ma- terials deposited by the participating li- braries. Yale University's "selective book re- tirement program"4 was begun in 1952. Books are shelved in "double-faced" stacks 7'6" in height with 22" aisles. The books are shelved by size in six sizes, with volumes in the first four size groups, 5" to 9" in width and not more than 12" high, shelved on their fore- edges; volumes in the fifth group, 12" to 16" high, are shelved upright; and vol- umes in the sixth size group, over 16", are shelved flat. Shelves are completely 162 I College & Research Libraries • May 1970 filled, with no room for insertion; books are assigned a fixed location number within their size designation. All trace of the original classification is obliterated from the book and from the catalog cards for the book. The storage number must also be typed on these cards, cre- ating a heavy workload of cards being removed from the catalog and being re- filed. All record changing procedures are performed by experienced members of the university library cataloging depart- ment, which often causes a backlog in the regular workload of the cataloging department. As the record changing pro- cedure is so permanent, the importance of accurate and careful selection of books for storage at Yale cannot be over- emphasized. Similar procedures are followed at the New York Public Library, whose book storage program began in 1956, and by the Union College library. 5 THE ANNEX BuiLDING: THEORY AND CoNSTRUCTION Unlike the other storage facilities just described, Princeton's Annex Library has been developed as an open stack li- brary. The preservation of "browsabili- ty," while attempting to provide com- pact shelving of books, was the primary goal of the planners and architects of this building. The library was designed by the firm of Warner, Burns, Toan and Lunde (New York) and was financed in part by federal funds. It was built on relatively inexpensive University land about a mile and a half from the main campus, at Princeton's James Forrestal campus. Construction on the Annex building was completed in the autumn of 1968. The original plans for the Annex Li- brary, which called for a separately maintained office, a reading room, a sorting room building, and a warehouse structure for 500,000 volumes, all linked by a corridor, had to be scrapped be- cause of the expense involved in such a design. A modified arrangement, in which the office and reading room are incorporated within the warehouse structure itself, was devised to lower the cost of construction. It also cut the capacity of the building by 100,000 vol- umes. Locked storage space is provided, too, within the shelving area for rare books, manuscripts, and university ar- chives. The modified plan also dimin- ished the amount of floor space that these library sections so badly need. The building, however, can be expanded in the future, either by extending the floor space of the building on its present site, or by building a second tier of stacks. The heating/ air-conditioning system will permit year-round temperature control, set at about sixty degrees, as well as humidity control, in an effort to keep dust and deterioration to a minimum. SHELVING PLAN The principle of "browsability" is maintained in the Annex Library by shelving books by classification within size. Compactness in storage is achieved by shelving books in six sizes. Unlike the Yale system, the determining dimension of a book for sizing is its height. Accord- ing to a Purdue University study, five ccproper ly chosen heights could increase capacity by 53 percent" over average li- brary shelving. 6 Originally, only five sizes were considered, based on size samplings done at Brown University, Yale, and Princeton. These five repre- sented height maximums of 7~~", 8~", ffi~", 12W', and 16W'. However, as the metal-clip, adjustable warehouse shelv- ing could only be adjusted on 1W' cen- ters, it was necessary to adapt the sizes to the shelving. The resulting size cate- gories are as follows: Up to 7~" Representing 10.7% of the shelving 7~~" to 9" Representing 20.9% of the shelving j Annex Library of Princeton University I 163 9" to 1()1~" Representing 35.5% of the shelving 10~~, to 13~~, Representing 24.3% of the shelving 13~" to 1m~" Representing 4.5% of the shelving All sizes have a finger deflection allow- ance of %". The sixth size was added later to accommodate books over 16~" tall. These books are shelved Hat. The stack ranges are about 8~' tall, which means that the usable shelves range from ten for the smallest size to five for the largest. In the first two sizes, books are shelved from both sides of a single 12" shelf. The books in the third size are shelved double on a 14" shelf. Thus, the space ordinarily wasted be- tween books shelved singly on double shelves is eliminated, except in the two larger sizes where the width of the book, being proportional to its height, war- rants the use of the full shelf width for a single volume. The width of the aisle in the first three sizes is about 22". Aisle spacing is wider in the larger sizes where books are shelved as convention- ally, on a double-shelved stack range, but even here the aisle width is still less than the normal stack aisle. OPERATION The Annex Library is open from 8:30 A.M. to 4:30 P.M., Monday through Fri- day. It is staffed by two experienced shelvers who alternate with each other, each working one week in the Annex and one week in the Firestone Library. (They do not work at the Annex at the same time. ) Each man can therefore spell the other on holidays and vaca- tions. It is the responsibility of the shelver to shelve all books sent to the Annex for storage, to retrieve books requested, to mai;ntain the circulation files, to host and assist visitors in the building, and to charge out books directly from the building. More will be said later about the components of retrieval. THE ANNEX OFFICE IN FIRESTONE LIBRARY: FuNCTION AND OPERATION The selection and processing of all books sent to storage is handled by a central office in the Firestone Library, as the office must be close to the main card catalog and the shelf list for the entire campus, as well as accessible to the peo- ple, departments, library sections, and special collections with which it works. This office coordinates the selection of the books. It also works with the various processing departments of the library: the cataloging department, the bindery, the additions and transfers section, rare books, circulation, and reserve, without being a part or subdivision. The Annex office is staffed by a professional librari- an, who is charged with setting up the procedures to be followed and settling policy questions, and by one nonprofes- sional assistant, who processes books and book records. SELECTION: WHY, WHAT, AND How There are two basic principles fol- lowed in selecting a book for storage. These principles, suggested by studies at Yale and the University of Chicago, are recency of use and age of material. 7 Dur- ing the process of selection, they are of- ten interrelated, in that old works are very often the most unused books in a subject. However, this is not necessarily so. A volume of Aristotle's works pub- lished in the seventeenth century may be in constant demand for the history of science courses, while a modern science text may be selected for storage because it contains outdated information which could misinform a reader. (The latter should not be discarded, as it may be- come tomorrow's history of science text. ) In general, however, the following guidelines are followed: ( 1) little or no 164 I College & Research Libraries • May 1970 use in the past ten years, as indicated on the circulation cards (primary guide for monographs); ( 2) publication prior to a certain date, the date varying with subject and content of the material ( pri- mary guide for serials); and ( 3) super- seded editions. It has been found, however, that even with such guidelines, it is best to consult those who know and use the books, as the best guideline is no substitute for in- timate awareness of the currents of in- terest and study within a discipline. Hence, three modes of selection have been set up: ( 1 ) direct faculty selec- tion: a faculty member examines the books in his field at the shelves and makes a list, by call number, of those he thinks can be stored; ( 2) librarian se- lection subject to faculty review: a knowledgeable librarian examines the books at the shelves, selects those to be stored, places them on a book truck to be displayed for about a week during which time the faculty may remove those volumes which they judge should not be stored; ( 3) librarian selection: a knowledgeable librarian examines the books at the shelves and makes a list by call number of the books to be stored. These selection techniques are, how- ever, not without Haw. There have been problems with interdepartmental con- flicts of interest. Thus, a man in the his- tory department may desire that a book which was selected for storage by some- one in the classics department remain available in the stacks. It has been nec- essary, therefore, to provide for flexibili- ty within selection and, subsequently, processing methods. The Annex Library tries to be as amenable as possible to reversal of selection. If a book is re- quested by two different borrowers dur- ing one year, or if a librarian requests that a book be transferred elsewhere, or if a justified student complaint is reg- istered, the book in question will be withdrawn from storage or ''de-An- nexed" and returned to the stacks. As books are examined for possible storage, others which ought to be dis- carded are also sought, especially un- necessary duplicate copies. There may also be in the stacks material which would be of interest to the Center for Research Libraries. The criteria for se- lection for the Center are that such ma- terial be: extensive in bulk, not especial- ly needed on campus, not commonly available in other libraries because of the difficulty or expense of its acquisi- tion, and infrequently, though some- times extensively, used. There are, therefore, four alternatives facing the book selector when he ex- amines books at the shelves: to leave the book on the shelf; to store the book; to withdraw the book; or to send the book or set of books to the Center for Research Libraries. By the time the Annex Library opened for business on N ovem her 18, 1968, 36,460 volumes, 240 archives box- es, and other cartons belonging to vari- ous library departments were stored on the Annex shelves. Since then, there have been an average of 4.1 requests per day for materials from its shelves. The largest number of books selected so far are in the subject of religion. Oth- er subjects represented are: general pe- riodicals, classics, sports, oratory, psy- chology, education, biology, geology, chemistry, economics, industrial rela- tions, theatre arts, and music. PREP ARA noN OF BooKs FOR STORAGE Books which have been selected for storage may be sent directly to the An- nex office for processing, where they are arranged in call number order so that a list of call numbers can be compiled. Or, a list of the call numbers may be given to the Annex librarian, whose staff will then gather the books from the stacks. This list of call numbers becomes, in the processing procedures, the master rec- I ~ Annex Library of Princeton University I 165 ord of all transactions involving each call number. The first step in the preparation of books for storage is to measure them. Five wooden sticks, each the maximum height of one of the five height cate- gories, are used for this purpose. Princeton's size categories are desig- nated by the roman numerals I, II, III, IV, and V. In the original plans, the des- ignations were alphabetical A, B, C, D, and E, but these were changed because of the possibility of confusion with the Library of Congress classification. Books which measure over 163~" are labeled "Elephant." Books which measure in dif- ferent sizes, although part of the same set, are assigned to the different sizes, togetherness being subordinate to com- pactness. The size for each call number record- ed on the master sheet is written next to that call number. A small ''self-adhesive'' label, about W' by %" is affixed to the spine or front cover of the book, to show the roman numeral size category in which the book should be shelved. In case this label comes off, ANNEX Lm. is stamped on the inside cover of each book where its call number is again noted, should the call number on the spine be unreadable. A smaller stamp, ANNEX, is stamped on the circulation cards, in order to distinguish the normal- ly circulating Annex book from other books which circulate for different peri- ods of time. If a book has no circulation cards, none are made until the book is circulated. When a request to de-Annex a book is received, the adhesive label is re- moved from the book, the ANNEX Lm. stamp on the inside cover and the small- er ANNEX stamp on the book cards are crossed out. The book is then ready to be reshelved in the open stacks. CATALOGING AND RECORD KEEPING The . simplicity of Princeton's storage procedures derives from the fact that no change is made in the given identifica- tion of a book. The classified call num- ber is retained as the primary element needed to identify and locate each book in storage. The size of book is the sec- ond element needed because, as men- tioned earlier, books are stored in clas- sification order within each size. Because books selected for storage are removed from assigned and known lo- cations in the stacks, it is imperative that all cataloging records for each title (i.e., shelf list card, main entry card, and all secondary entries) show the new loca- tion as quickly as possible. A complete record for all books in all the Princeton campus libraries is kept in the Firestone Library, where books are centrally cata- loged. Each outside library also main- tains its own main and secondary entry file; cards in these files, too, must show the new location of books transferred to the Annex. The Annex staff can indicate this transfer in all the above-mentioned rec- ords without removing any card, except the main entry card from the public cat- alog in Firestone, and without writing on any card, except in a few special in- stances. This is accomplished by slipping a pre-printed plastic envelope or "card protector" of .002" Mylar (Demeo #28- 681) over every card as indicated in the tracings on the main entry card. The slip is imprinted within ~f' or ~4'' from the top of the slip with a roman numer- al for the size, the Annex location, and brief directions for retrieval. The great advantage to using these slips is that by simply removing them from the cards a book is reinstated to its former position in the library. The greatest disadvantage is that their use expands the catalog by one inch for every 250 cards slipped. Postulating five as the average number of cards per title, these figures indicate that the catalog will expand by one inch for every fifty titles stored. 166 1 College & Research Libraries • May 1970 The Annex Library's record of books in storage is its shelf list, a classified card arrangement in which the sizes are interfiled. It is used not only to check whether a title is in the Annex but also as a cross-reference from call number to size. The call number, author, short title, place and date of publication are typed from the library's shelf list. Besides bib- liographic information, a card may indi- cate multiple volume and copy informa- tion. The size designation is taken from the master sheet and marked in red ink on the typed card. The shelf list card from which each typed card was copied is slipped with an appropriately sized plastic slip. The typed cards are then used in the record changing process at the catalog, after which they become part of the Annex shelf list. The basic processing routines are ex- plained in the "Annex Library Proce- dures Manual," useful especially in training new personnel and for main- taining uniformity. The average cost of processing an An- nex book and to change the catalog rec- ord is forty-eight cents. This price in- cludes the cost of supplies, as well as of labor. The average was obtained by combining the cost of the labor of the professional and nonprofessional work- ers, as both perform the book-processing operations. TRANSPORTATION Most books are sent to the Annex Li- brary on large 54W' by 42W' book trucks aboard the library's mail delivery truck. If the books are fairly small, more than 400 volumes can be shipped at once. This method of transport requires, how- ever, the existence of docking facilities, which are available at both the Fire- stone Library and the Annex Library. Branch libraries without docking facili- ties must send their books in boxes to the Annex office in Firestone, where they are processed and then sent to storage on the book trucks. COMPONENTS OF RETRIEVAL Retrieval of books from the Annex Li- brary operates on a principle similar to interlibrary loan. An individual at the main campus may either .borrow a book directly from the Annex by going there himself or he can borrow the book through one of the campus libraries. Most circulation from the Annex is indi- rect-from the Annex to a campus li- brary and subsequently to the borrower. Annex books circulate to any authorized borrower regardless of status for the du- ration of the academic year. This policy was established to make the use of An- nex books more attractive, especially to those borrowers whose loan period is normally limited, such as undergradu- ates and graduate students. Like other library books, an Annex book is subject to recall for another borrower after it has been charged out for two weeks. Several forms of communication be- tween the main campus libraries and the Annex were explored before the method now used was chosen. The main requirements for any communication equipment were: ( 1) that it not require the presence of the shelver who cannot always be in his office; ( 2) that it be available to all the campus libraries; ( 3 ) that it not be prohibitively expensive. The ordinary telephone was eliminated by the first requirement. Simple varia- tions of it -extensions and loud bells for the storage area were thought to be too clumsy, interrupting and perhaps star- tling the shelver in the middle of his work. Facsimile transmission was elimi- nated by requirements two and three. It would be too expensive to place trans- mission units in each of the campus li- braries, although this means of commu- nication was considered to be the least error-prone. In the end, it was decided to use the Bell System's "Electronic Sec- retary," a telephone-answering and re- Annex Library of Princeton University I 161 cording machine. It requires only a reg- ular telephone to transmit information from the campus libraries; it records and holds spoken book requests until the shelver has time to take the messages, and is fairly inexpensive to lease ( $28.80 per month). In order to avoid abuse of the record- ing device, its extension number is giv- en out only to those circulation depart- ments or services, such as interlibrary loan, which regularly request Annex books. It has been found that this ma- chine works well for the purpose, de- spite the disadvantages inherent in de- livery of messages by telephone. In addition to the "Electronic Secre- tary," there is another telephone, whose number is available to the public. If the shelver is not in the office, however, this phone goes unanswered. Books are carried between the main campus and the Annex Library twice a day, once in the morning and once in the afternoon. Therefore, the waiting time for a normal Annex book request is never more than twelve hours for a book wanted at the Firestone Library and rarely more than twenty-four hours for a book requested by other campus li- braries. CoNCLUSIONS The fundamental principle underlying all policies formulated for the Annex Li- brary is to make the idea of compact storage as attractive as possible to all concerned. From the beginning, the Li- brarian consulted with the faculty and the library trustees on the subject, al- ways keeping them informed of new de- velopments, with the hope that an en- lightened public will be an understand- ing one. In light of this principle, the importance of such key elements as the following cannot be overemphasized. Factors which were deemed impor- tant to faculty, student body, and other users of the library included: ( 1 ) selec- tion with faculty assistance or review; ( 2) reversible selection; ( 3) quick re- trieval time; ( 4) browsability: retention of open stack concept; ( 5) slipping all catalog records to show Annex location; ( 6) direct circulation from the Annex Library, as well as indirect circulation; ( 7) full academic year loan period, re- gardless of status. Factors which were considered impor- tant to librarians and library administra- tion included: ( 1 ) no change in estab- lished cataloging and classification; ( 2) all work done by an independent de- partment; ( 3) fast adjustment of all cat- aloging records, so that the time gap be- tween moving the books and indicating their location is minimized; ( 4) repair of books which ~re falling apart and would not last long if stored in their present condition; ( 5) temperature and humidity control to prevent decay of book materials. THE FUTURE · The Annex Library is designed to be a continuously functioning operation. Access to books stored therein will al- ways be needed. Provision has been made in the original construction to ex- pand the capacity of the building in the future. REFERENCES 1. "Long Range Space Requirements of the Princeton University Library" (Memorandum to the Trustees Com- mittee on the Library and the Faculty Committee on the Library from William S. Dix, Librarian, Jan. 5, 1959). 2. Keyes D. Metcalf, "The New England Deposit Library," Library Quarterly 12: 622-28 (July 1942). 3. Ralph T. Esterquest, Comments on the 168 I College & Research Libraries • May 1970 article "Shelving Books by Size," by Rutherford D. Rogers, ALA Bulletin 51:347 (June 1g.57). 4. Lee Ash, Yale's Selective Book Retire- ment Program (Hamden, Conn: Ar- chon, 1963) ; stack size: p .52; size cate- gories: pp.85- 86; operation: pp.42-44. 5. Rutherford D. Rogers, "Shelving Books by Size," ALA Bulletin 51:435-37 (June 1957); Personal communication to War- ren Kuhn, former Assistant Librarian for Circulation, Princeton Univ. 6. Lawrence Galton, "A 'Software' Ap~ proach to Library Glutting" (Purdue Univ. , School of Engineering. Back- grounder from Purdue, Nov. 1966). 7. Ash, Selective Book Retirement, pp.73- 7 4; Herman H. Fussier and Julian L. Simon, Patterns in the Use of Books in Large Research Libraries (Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Library, 1961) pp. 263-77. j j ..