What is Compact Shelving?

Mobile compact shelving consists of standard library cantilevered shelving that is mounted on wheeled carriages which travel on rails that have been installed onto the floor.

This arrangement means that fixed aisles are not required between every stack: the stacks can be compressed into a smaller space and a single aisle is created as needed by rolling the stacks apart to access a specific range. Moving the stacks is accomplished by using an electrical motorized drive system. A compact shelving system can hold approximately three times as many books as conventional shelving in the same floor area. Consequently it is also three times as heavy! The only space in Renne which is currently capable of bearing this additional load is the slab basement floor, which is where we installed this system. Materials will then be relocated to the basement freeing up space on the upper floors.

What Materials are on Compact Shelving?

The following materials have been moved to compact shelving:

• Documents: The government documents print collection (the documents microforms are up on the 4th floor)

• Periodicals: As many periodicals beginning at the beginning of the LC run as the shelving will accommodate (i.e. these periodicals will be separated from the main STACKS collection). Not all periodicals will fit on the compact shelving so some will remain in the regular stacks. What's there now? Periodicals in LC call numbers A -