Open AccessThe Time Has Come... To Move Many Things: Inventorying and Preparing a Collection for Offsite Storage
Author(s) -
Rachelle M McLain,
Hannah McKelvey
Publication year - 2020
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Conference proceedings
DOI - 10.5703/1288284317169
Subject(s) - session (web analytics) , workflow , computer science , work (physics) , world wide web , scale (ratio) , subject (documents) , project management , order (exchange) , collection development , project team , library science , engineering management , business , engineering , knowledge management , database , mechanical engineering , physics , systems engineering , finance , quantum mechanics
In the spring of 2019, the Montana State University (MSU) Library embarked on alarge-scale inventory project that involved weeding and moving portions of theircollection to an offsite storage facility within six months in order to create morestudent study space in the Library. The department primarily responsible for leading theproject, Collections Access & Technical Services, the result of two departmentsmerging, was also simultaneously navigating their new structure and a remodel of theirworkspace thus adding further challenges to the project. This poster sessiondemonstrated how MSU Library approached and completed this project by advocating totheir Library Administration for additional resources, including hiring a projectmanager and third-party companies to assist with the inventory and moving of thecollection. It also discussed the types of work groups formed to identify new workflows(i.e., retrieval of offsite items) and modify existing ones, involving student employeesin the project, and internal and external collaborations that took place. Additionally,presenters shared strategies used to communicate to their campus community, and theimpact this project has had on our patrons. They also included statistics that weregathered during the project including deselection figures, the number of materials thatdid not have barcodes and were not accounted for in the Library’s catalog and discoverylayer (Ex Libris’ Alma and Primo), and what subject areas currently remain in the mainlibrary building.