Annex Expansion Project:
A Letter from the University Librarian
Office of the Carl A. Kroch University Librarian
201 John M. Olin Library
March 24, 1997
Dear Colleague:
I am pleased and relieved to tell you that in December 1996, the University Trustees approved plans and funding for an expansion of the Library Annex. The existing Library Annex is located off Palm Road, near the Cornell orchard. Built in 1978, the Annex contains about one million volumes. The new space will accommodate approximately 1.4 million volumes and provide an updated reading room and staff work area. Cornell University Library has sought such a building for over a decade as a solution to the relentless overcrowding in many libraries on the central campus and in anticipation of the continued growth of our collections.
Currently the Cornell University Library is the eleventh largest academic library in North America. We add almost 120,000 volumes (2.2 miles of shelving) to our collections each year. Despite our keen interest in digital publications, we do not expect a significant decrease in the next few years in the number of print publications we acquire because publishing patterns suggest that electronic publications will supplement rather than replace print materials. In 1991, the Trustees, concerned about the congestion of buildings on campus, the importance of devoting central campus space to faculty and student uses, and the high cost of construction, established a policy of zero growth for campus library facilities beyond those already on the drawing board. Given this policy, the University and the Library Administration agree that a modern Library Annex is the most attractive option for the community we serve.
Cornell's decision to build a new library storage module parallels that taken by many other universities. Harvard's Deposit Library, a state-of-the art building with high density storage, serves as the model for Cornell's design. Yale plans to construct a remote storage facility and move 2.8 million volumes offsite over the next four years. The universities of Pennsylvania, Minnesota, Missouri, and Ohio are all constructing high-density facilities. In 1998, the Library of Congress will be opening the first of four modules planned for offsite storage in Maryland on land acquired following the closing of Ft. Meade.
Now our task is to plan for the orderly selection and transfer of materials to the expanded Library Annex. We expect to break ground in April and move one million volumes into the new facility during 1998 and 1999. Approximately half of the transfers will come from Olin Library and the remaining half will come from the other libraries on campus. Every item moved to the Library Annex will have a record in the Library's online catalog. You will be able to use the catalog to request materials and, as now, the staff will deliver your request within 24 hours without a fee to the campus library you designate. A public reading room at the Annex will be available if you require more immediate access to materials, and you can borrow directly from the Annex. If we find that items sent to the Annex are in frequent demand, we can easily transfer them back to campus.
During the 1997/98 academic year, the Library's subject selectors will visit departments to outline the methods for transferring materials to the Library Annex. I am attaching a list of selectors so you can contact them for more information. Because scholars in different disciplines use libraries differently, we will not use a uniform methodology to transfer materials to the Annex, although our basic criterion is to retain the most frequently used items on the central campus.
The Library will post further information on the development of the Library Annex on a web site, which we will create later this spring. My senior staff and I plan to join selectors in visiting as many departments and programs as we can during the next year to discuss the planning of this complex operation and other key library issues. In the meantime, please feel free to contact me if you have any immediate questions.
Yours sincerely,
Sarah E. Thomas,
University Librarian