News & Events
ALF Receives Millionth Volume
10/26/2005
After the volume is accessioned by the ALF, it will be displayed temporarily in the Lilly Library as part of an exhibit on the 400th anniversary of the first publication of Don Quixote in 1605.
The book will then be housed in the ALF vault at 50 degrees and 30 percent relative humidity and no UV light. “It’s almost the exact climate of Mammoth Cave,” says Vaughn Nuest, manager of the Ruth Lilly Auxiliary Library Facility. The conditions there, Nuest says, can add 300 to 400 years to the life of a book.
In addition to providing superior environmental conditions, the ALF ensures that early printed books that have been stored in the crowded stacks of the Wells Library will be secure and available for future generations of researchers.
“This milestone marks our progress in serving the IU community,” says Patricia Steele, Ruth Lilly Interim Dean of University Libraries. “The Herman B Wells Library reached its capacity for books more than ten years ago, and we are working toward improving conditions there. I am extremely proud of the staff members who have worked so hard to transfer the books and who continue to work hard to deliver requested items to IU students and faculty.”
Materials are being shifted to the ALF to make room on overcrowded shelves in the university libraries. Volumes selected for transfer are low-use materials as well as rare and fragile materials. Nuest leads four full-time staff members and student employees in processing materials, and staff in the E. Lingle Craig Preservation Laboratory provide conservation services.
When materials are transferred to the ALF, they are assigned a bar code, vacuumed, measured, placed in a tray with books of similar size, and shelved in an assigned location. This edition of Des berühmten Ritters, Don Quixote von Mancha, believed to be one of only two existing copies available in North American libraries, will also be placed in a custom-fit protective enclosure. Books are shelved according to size, not call number, and are retrieved using customized inventory software.
Approximately 1.5 percent of vault materials have been requested for circulation during the ALF's first three years of operation. Materials requested by noon, Monday through Friday, will be delivered to any one of 21 locations on campus by 5 p.m. “We're like the post office. It's a promise: if you make a request by noon, we'll get it to you that same day,” says Nuest. “There's a hundred percent chance that when you request an item at the ALF, you're going to get it.”
The Ruth Lilly Auxiliary Library was constructed in 2002. It received its first transfer of books on February 17, 2003, and since then has received books, government records, university archives, manuscript collections, and films from all of the Bloomington campus libraries. The vault will hold approximately 2 million items. With enough space for four modules on the land that the ALF occupies, plans are underway to acquire funding to begin construction on a second vault.
