[Ads-l] News Article: Cold Book Storage at Harvard

[Laurence Horn]

Sounds much like our LSF, the long-term shelving facility in Hamden, CT, which is a lot closer geographically to Yale's Stirling Memorial Library than 30 miles (more like 4 miles), and even more closer [!], less than a mile as the Google maps, from where I'm typing this at home. Not that I could walk there in 15 minutes and request a book I needed; it's all done electronically as described.  

They conducted tours of the LSF when it first opened, and indeed the books there are arranged by size, labeled by barcodes, and fetched by forklifts as the article describes for the Harvard Depository.  (Somehow I don't like the sound of that "Depository", but no doubt these lack windows that riflemen could aim from.)  My worry when I did the tour was that if a book somehow did disappear in the bowels of the LSF, it would be awfully difficult for humans to locate it.  Don't know how often that happens.

LH

P.S. I wouldn't have guessed that Harvard's Gutenberg is housed in Widener as opposed to Houghton; ours is in Beinecke, with other rarities.
 

On Feb 8, 2015, at 3:45 PM, ADSGarson O'Toole wrote:

> Title: A Glimpse Inside the Hidden Vault Where Harvard Keeps Millions of Books
> Author: Sarah Zhang
> Website: Gizmodo
> Date: February 6, 2015
> 
> Short link: https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__bit.ly_1DROnNV&d=AwIBAw&c=-dg2m7zWuuDZ0MUcV7Sdqw&r=wFp3X4Mu39hB2bf13gtz0ZpW1TsSxPIWYiZRsMFFaLQ&m=HFt3NnRJ6nMdwsCqwpkoI4V3lNEz6axdlVKDg_lkHC0&s=aAf44KQR24BIOj3DHUb32bC3XZKLzrEBcrXZxgguBYs&e= 
> 
> https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__gizmodo.com_a-2Dglimpse-2Dinside-2Dthe-2Dhidden-2Dvault-2Dwhere-2Dharvard-2Dkeeps-2Dm-2D1684024865&d=AwIBAw&c=-dg2m7zWuuDZ0MUcV7Sdqw&r=wFp3X4Mu39hB2bf13gtz0ZpW1TsSxPIWYiZRsMFFaLQ&m=HFt3NnRJ6nMdwsCqwpkoI4V3lNEz6axdlVKDg_lkHC0&s=yT21hXP_HPuHqYyya-BVJ9ED2LJfU6gjBkYAnFt7wUo&e= 
> 
> [Begin excerpt]
> The Harvard Depository, some 30 miles from the Cambridge campus,
> better resembles an Amazon warehouse than a library. The 200,000
> square foot facility houses the vast majority of Harvard Library's
> collection--some 9 million books, films, LPs, magnetic tapes, and
> pamphlets sorted not by the Dewey decimal system but by size.
> 
> A fascinating new interactive documentary, Cold Storage, glimpses
> inside this little-known world.
> [End excerpt]
> 
> Garson
> 
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__www.americandialect.org&d=AwIBAw&c=-dg2m7zWuuDZ0MUcV7Sdqw&r=wFp3X4Mu39hB2bf13gtz0ZpW1TsSxPIWYiZRsMFFaLQ&m=HFt3NnRJ6nMdwsCqwpkoI4V3lNEz6axdlVKDg_lkHC0&s=acAq_SKOMb2SnH4GFjpjY0kjha2dwKLKOjO4sLwMWSg&e= 

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