One of the key strategic commitments of the University of California, San Diego Libraries is to maximize the use of campus library spaces to provide a variety of study, research, and cultural opportunities. Given that the collections grow by approximately 50,000 physical volumes every year, it is a priority to identify and carefully monitor the print volumes and other collections that remain in the campus libraries.
The UC San Diego Libraries’ first priority is to keep on campus those materials that are needed to support the campus’ current academic programs. The factors used to consider in the decision on materials to send to storage include use and circulation, and whether the item is available online. The Libraries have acquired many journal runs and an increasing number of books in online formats and many of these duplicate holdings in the print collections.
Storage Facilities
The UC San Diego Libraries are fortunate to have two off-site storage facilities available to accommodate additional, less-used research-level materials across a wide spectrum of disciplines. Generally, materials stored off-site in the UCSD Library Annex and the
UC Southern Regional Library Facility (SRLF) are those that have circulated less frequently, if at all, in recent years.
The UCSD Library Annex, located off Miramar Road, occupies a UCSD-leased building that also contains the UCSD Storehouse. The Annex is a large, two-level facility that can house approximately 550,000 volumes. The UCSD Library Annex is primarily to be used for short-term storage of materials that are part of the on-campus collections. This includes staging of collections temporarily displaced due to building renovations, large gifts or other large acquisitions pending processing and review, and additional copies of popular instructional support materials.
Like the other southern UC campuses, the UCSD Libraries routinely transfer materials for which current or anticipated demand is relatively low to the Southern Regional Library Facility (SRLF) in Los Angeles. The SRLF is a high-density and climate-controlled storage facility that is designed to preserve UC collections for future researchers and scholars. It is one of two regional storage facilities supported by the University of California system to support coordinated collection, shared print, and persistent retention collection activities across the UC campuses. The UC San Diego Libraries have an annual deposit allocation that is adjusted annually, when it is necessary to send more (or fewer) volumes. If a title is determined to be already on deposit at SRLF, it is not eligible for transfer. In these cases, the volumes are withdrawn from the collection. As library space becomes an increasingly important asset, both in terms of enhancing the library as ‘place’ and accommodating user needs, we will take advantage of SRLF’s services and transfer as many of our low-use materials as possible.
Circulating materials in the Annex and SRLF are included in Roger. The materials at the Annex or in the SRLF are available quickly and reliably to library users, who can request delivery from their computers and select the most convenient UCSD library location for pick-up. Journal articles from SRLF can be requested and delivered online.
Sam Dunlap is UC San Diego Libraries’ representative to the SRLF Operations Committee and works closely with other Collection Coordinators and Ryan Finnerty (Metadata Services Department) to establish the annual UCSD request for deposit.