[Service Points]

BOOK MOVES AT THE NATIONAL LIBRARY - 1/98



What is 30 kilometres long and 7.2 metres high?

The answer is the shelving in the new warehouse built for the National Library. This shelving sits on a 2,400 square metre slab containing 500 cubic metres of concrete. 14 trucks per hour, each carrying 15 tonnes of concrete, took 8 hours to deliver the concrete to the site in the Canberra suburb of Hume. The finished facility sports 33 kilometres of 7.5 metre high storage.

The National Library has built the warehouse because the stacks in the Library building are full and there is no further space for expansion. Since occupation of the existing Library building in 1968, the collections have grown by approximately 134 shelf kilometres and are currently growing at an annual rate of approximately 5 kilometres. Many pre-1980 overseas serials are already outhoused in another warehouse.

Almost all the items in the monograph and serials collection are being moved, either to the warehouse or to a different location within the stack areas in the Library building. Approximately 175 shelf kilometres of material will be moved in all, the largest book move in the Library's history.

The first stage of the move has commenced. It involves moving approximately 850,000 volumes to the warehouse and is expected to take approximately 13 weeks.

The second stage of the move will begin about the middle of the year. This involves the re-arrangement of the material remaining within the Library building and will take approximately 6 months.

Document Supply Service will transfer some staff members to the warehouse in early July to process requests for the material on site, including photocopying and scanning for Ariel transmission. This will ensure that requests are processed promptly. During the move, the Document Supply Service will continue to maintain its high level of service as staff work after hours to retrieve materials. If you have any concerns please contact us by phone, fax or e-mail.

Supply 1

SUPPLY 1 was introduced in 1996 in response to the National Library’s collection redirection strategy. The service seeks to obtain documents not in the Library’s collections from libraries and commercial suppliers around the world. SUPPLY 1 is available to libraries, businesses and individuals and provides a fast, reliable and flexible service, with a choice of delivery options. For more information check the SUPPLY 1 web page at http://www.nla.gov.au/supply1/

UnCover Australia Service

UnCover Australia is a service offered by the National Library by special arrangement with the UnCover Company, a commercial document supplier in the United States with an extensive database of contents pages of journals. The company provides a rapid document delivery service from over 17,000 journals within hours of request. By special agreement, UnCover Australia not only provides a gateway to the UnCover database but also offers discounted documents to Australian libraries using the gateway. In return, the National Library provides copies of the contents pages of Australian journals for inclusion in the UnCover database. It also supplies the articles requested from these journals. With the introduction of UnCover Australia the Australian library community now has access to the contents pages of over 700 Australian journals from UnCover.

DocSS buys two more Minolta scanners

Document Supply Service has ordered two new Minolta PS3000 overhead scanners for use with Ariel, taking our total number of scanners to five. Four will be located in the Document Supply Service work area and one will be set up in the new warehouse to help ensure a speedy service from there. Currently, Document Supply Service dispatches approximately one third of the copies supplied via Ariel as more libraries choose to receive their documents by this medium. Further information about Ariel can be obtained from the ABN Help Desk, phone 1800 026 155 or the internet address http://www.abn.nla.gov.au/ariel

Interlibrary lending component of the Networked Services Project

On 30 March 1998, the Director-General of the National Library of Australia, Warren Horton, announced that Fretwell-Downing Informatics Ltd’s OLIB (Open Library Systems) VDX (Virtual Document eXchange) software would replace the ABN ILL Subsystem. The new system will be called the Kinetica Document Delivery Service. Australian libraries will use the service through a World Wide Web interface, requiring a browser such as Netscape or Microsoft Internet Explorer. The OLIB VDX software will also be implemented by the Document Supply Service and fully integrated with the Ariel transmission system.

The same software has been chosen by the Australian Vice-Chancellors' Committee's LIDDA (Local Interlending and Document Delivery Request Administration) Project. Further information can be found through the National Library's Home Page at http://www.nla.gov.au/nsp/

Lost or damaged books

The loan period for items borrowed from the National Library's collections is 10 weeks, with no extensions. If the book has not been returned by the due date, an overdue reminder letter is sent. If there is no response to that, a second notice is sent. If the book is not returned in response to this second notice, it will be presumed lost and an invoice for $90.00 issued. This charge includes a $15.00 non-refundable administration fee, which is payable whether or not the book is subsequently returned. Books returned damaged will attract the same charge.

Further information or enquiries

If you would like further information about any of these matters or about any aspect of the Document Supply Service, do not hesitate to contact us.


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Last updated 27 July 1997