Ribbon-cutting ceremonies took place on Feb. 13 for
the new JHU Libraries' Service Center, a state-of-the-art
facility providing high-density shelving for more than 2
million volumes. Located on the
Applied Physics
Laboratory campus in Laurel, Md., it replaces the
libraries' Baltimore facility, which was established in
1995. The new center was funded in part by a state grant of
$2 million.
The center houses approximately 1.4 million books and
journals, microforms and audiovisual materials from the
Eisenhower
Library. The Welch
Medical Library and the Wilmer Eye Institute
also house materials there.
Modular in design, the current shelving capacity of
2.2 million volumes can be expanded to hold 8.8 million
volumes, including a cold storage area for film. Books are
shelved by size to maximize shelving capacity, and the
temperature is kept at a cool 50 degrees, an optimal
setting for the preservation of library materials.
"The APL campus is an ideal location," said Winston
Tabb, dean of university libraries. "It allows us to
provide quick and easy access to library materials, and the
expansion capability will ensure that we can maintain
on-campus library space for readers and key library
services. We are grateful to our colleagues at APL for
their generosity and support of this initiative, which
benefits patrons at all the Johns Hopkins libraries."
The center receives an average of 100 requests daily,
which can be made online from the JHU Libraries Catalog or
via the Web. Ninety percent of the article-length materials
requested are delivered to the requestor's desktop computer
within two hours, and books are delivered twice daily by
courier to the Homewood campus. All the materials formerly
housed at the Baltimore facility have been relocated to the
new center, which is open seven days a week.
Future plans call for the center to be available to
Maryland libraries as a statewide facility for preserving
and providing access to a shared collection, reducing the
need for redundant print collections in individual
libraries. The University System of Maryland's McKeldin
Library already shelves more than 475,000 items there.
The center was built by the Kinsley Construction
Company, based in York, Pa.
On hand to cut the ribbon were Jim Zeller, associate
provost; Larry Kilduff, executive director of facilities
operations; Winston Tabb, dean of university libraries;
Richard Roca, director of APL; and Ruth Nimmo, assistant
director of operations at APL.