With nearly 700,000 book volumes moved from the Duke Offsite Storage Stacks to the new Library Services Center, library users report that obtaining books from the center has been easy.
"What really matters for the professors is how rapidly we receive the texts," said Professor of History Peter Wood. "If there was some obscure collection, it might be easier to go there. The trade-off could be to put copies of the tables of contents in Perkins [Library]. I have found that that the delivery system has worked very well."
Wood said he appreciated the Online Public Access Catalog, a service that allows professors and students to order books online, since his office is located on East Campus in the Carr Building.
Now that most volumes have been moved, officials are busy re-cataloging the books on the new Library Services Center system, which is based on one at Yale University. They said the process has been slow, but once they finish, they expect to provide the same 24-hour service with less paperwork for patrons.
"We are even looking into ways of photocopying old journals and having them delivered in the same way," said Tom Wall, director of public services at Perkins. "It is functional now, but we are trying to make it more functional. My goal is to make this seamless for the library patrons."
By building the new facility, library officials hoped to plan for long-term space needs and improve the conditions for storage of the older volumes by decreasing temperature and humidity.
Wall said the stacks are 45 feet tall, so that the 23,000 square-foot site may be optimized in consideration of size and depth, rather than by subject.
Although the off-site stacks are not browsable, the new center successfully fills between 30 and 40 requests each day, said Maurice Parker, the center's assistant manager.
Most undergraduates said they did not know about the off-site service, but graduate students and professors reported using it frequently.
"I used it once last year," said undergraduate Dorian Nicole Haynes. "The only reason I know about it is because last year I had to learn about the library resources for a writing class. The librarian did it for me, so I never knew where [the articles] actually came from."
Although the service is open to all students, Graduate and Student Professional Council President Elayne Heisler, a student in sociology, found it to be very department-based.
"I have not used them," she said, "but I am in the sociology department. The sciences and social sciences have less use [for the off-site volumes] because they usually require more recent articles."
Marianne Wardle, a graduate student in art and art history and GPSC representative to the library, said she makes use of the service. "I use them all the time," she said, "but only for research purposes. I have no other use for those resources."
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