Transfers

The Library Shelving Facility (LSF), which is operated by LCS staff, provides space relief among all units in the Yale University Library system. Since its inception in 1998, LSF space and processing labor have been budgeted to accommodate a routine annual transfer of 250,000 items to off-campus shelving (150K items from SML/100K items from the school and departmental libraries). 

Preparation for each year’s transfer usually begins at the end of the previous fiscal year in May.  At that time, the LCS Director solicits proposals from appropriate parties representing each library unit concerning the materials they will wish to transfer off-campus in the coming year.  Units are requested to share information about the materials they wish to transfer including a physical description which minimally will indicate the material type (bound volumes, DVDs/CDs, microfilm, videos, film, archival boxes, etc.) and, if possible, basic sizes (e.g. oversized books, folios, paige or letter boxes). Units are also required to provide an accurate estimate—in either linear feet or number of items—of the quantity of material in each medium. This estimate may be rendered in. 

Since everything shelved at the LSF must be retrievable for patron use, a description of the bibliographic control for the items to be transferred [e.g. full MARC record, Encoded Archival Description] is also provided by transferring units at the time their transfer proposals are submitted. Finally each unit is ask to make a cogent argument in support of the need to transfer their specified materials in the coming fiscal year (preservation concerns, maintenance of current shelf occupancy levels, etc.).  This information is used to prioritize transfer requests in instances where the total proposed transfer workload exceeds the resources available to complete it.