Paging Materials to Maintain Quality Library Service During a Two-Year Renovation

Abstract

Beginning in July 2002, the Health Sciences Library at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill underwent an 11 million dollar renovation. During three phases of the renovation, parts of the collection were inaccessible to patrons. In order to continue to make the library's collection available, library staff created a paging system. Patrons submitted requests for needed library materials using paper and electronic forms and library staff retrieved the requested items. The paging service was modified three times based on prior experience. Patrons were generally satisfied with the service. The renovation ended in December 2004.

A Bookless Library, Part II: Managing Access Services With No In-House Collections

“…There have been three well-documented cases of maintaining service points while libraries have had to close some, if not all, of their stacks for renovation projects. Norton et al (2006) discusses in detail the steps needed to provide access to closed stacks due a two-year renovation project at the Health Sciences Library at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the measures taken to maintain quality services during the process. To prepare for this project 300,000 items were moved off site, and access to the rest of the collections was limited.…”