Preparation is the key to success: manageable techniques for measuring collections for moving

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

Most librarians who manage collections will be involved in a shifting or moving project at some point in their career. There are numerous reasons why a library would need to move collections, from a large-scale renovation to a reorganization to accommodate changing priorities. The Pennsylvania State University Libraries consist of more than 20 campus libraries distributed across the Commonwealth. Penn State Brandywine and Penn State Scranton are two similarly sized campuses with enrollments between 900 and 1,200 students. The head librarians at both campuses had reasons to move collections into smaller spaces and realized that precise and mathematical preparation and planning was key to success. While some has been written about the methods and techniques for deselection, there are very few practical guides to the mechanics and mathematics of planning for a collection move. This article is intended to share our experiences and to provide quick and basic instructions about how to anticipate space needs and plan for redeployment of a collection—once the more complicated decisions about where, when, why, and how are answered. We think these methods will work best for collections of up to 100,000 items in an academic library setting.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)283-288
Number of pages6
JournalCollege and Research Libraries News
Volume85
Issue number7
DOIs
StatePublished - Jul 1 2024

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

  • Education
  • Library and Information Sciences

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