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In the summer of 2007, the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga (UTC) received 48 million dollars to plan and build a new library. Planning for the moving of the collection began shortly thereafter. This paper details specific collections projects completed by UTC Library faculty and staff that resulted in a flawless move that took only 11 days to complete. The luxury of time to complete a collection inventory and accurate measurement was key, but so was selecting the right people for the project. Moving an entire library collection to a new facility doesn’t happen very often, and I would dare say that many librarians will never experience the utter stress and joy involved in such a huge endeavor. That said, whether you are moving your collection within your existing facility or to a completely new space—there are two ingredients that will help make the move much smoother: planning and a sense of humor! Without proper planning and coordination, a library move can be a disaster leaving you with collections in a mess and items not being available to your patrons. Proper planning and coordination allow for a smooth and “easy” move with little downtime and an orderly and available collection quickly. This paper will discuss how the UTC library staff successfully moved the Library’s collection from one building to a brand new facility with little mistakes. Focus will be placed on important points to consider to ensure success in your library move. Oh, and a sense of humor— that will get you through all the rough patches because there will be rough patches! In the summer of 2007, the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga (UTC) received 48 million dollars to plan and build a new library. The library and the entire UTC campus was thrilled, and a bit scared. This was a huge undertaking. At the time of funding, no building design or programming plans had been discussed. One thing was certain: the move was going to be a monumental undertaking, and as all good academic institutions do, committees were immediately put in place to begin planning the new building and the move in earnest. The library put together a committee named the Internal Library Building Committee. This committee was focused on all aspects of planning associated with the move to the new library. This included not only the physical move of the collection, but the programming and design of the building. As specific projects came up, and as the library moved closer to the actual move, a separate team led by staff members from the materials processing department with members from library IT, special collections, and library administration was formed to plan and work through the minute details associated with moving the physical collections. This team was small and agile, which allowed the group to communicate effectively and switch gears mid‐ project based on data and findings as work was completed. The team met weekly or more if needed and worked off of project plans and action items assigned to individual members. One project manager made sure that all projects running in parallel were being completed and any issues needing follow‐up or discussion were tracked. Most importantly, having a member of library administration on the team allowed for finite decisions to be made. This allowed projects to move more quickly because decisions did not have to be funneled up the chain of command. Because the new facility was not designed and the physical move was years in the future, the library had the luxury of time to plan and coordinate efforts surrounding the move of the physical collection. That said, without floor plans, shelving selections, and building programming, planning for the exact move of the collection was going to Copyright of this contribution remains in the name of the author(s). http://dx.doi.org/10.5703/1288284316255 Collection Development 200 be an ever‐changing and fluid process. The one thing that could be accomplished without knowledge of building specifications was one of the major pillars of any successful move and can be summarized in one phrase: “get to know your collection.” With a move looming in the future, it became imperative to begin accounting for the collections currently housed within the Lupton Library. It quickly became clear that the library’s collection had not been reviewed since it was moved into the current facility 35 years earlier, and it is possible that it had never been adequately reviewed and weeded. With this in mind, the first project related to the move was a review and inventory of the entire collection. A collection review and weeding project is not something to undertake without caution, especially at an academic institution where such a review has never occurred. Faculty needs and concerns were of the utmost importance and the collection review was open and transparent, and involved faculty at every step. The review involved library liaisons reviewing the collection by call number in four phases. Each phase focused on a different subject area, and all recommendations for discard were posted for faculty review and comment at the end of each review cycle. The overarching goal of the review was “a balanced collection that provides appropriate coverage on a topic, while preserving Intellectual Freedom in a constantly changing society” (Wikipedia). The review began in the fall of 2010 and was completed in spring 2012. An inventory of items was pulled from the library’s ILS, and each item was given a measurement of 1.25 inches. A size estimate was given so that the committee could determine current collection size and estimate size following discarding. In order for the review to be accurate and complete, another large project needed to be completed—barcoding bound serials. Bound serials were non‐circulating at the time of the review, but in order to properly inventory and estimate size of the collection, all bound serials had to be barcoded. The materials processing department, along with a select group of volunteer librarians, worked tirelessly to barcode all bound serials prior to the collection review beginning. During the review, it was estimated that up to 25% of the collection would be effectively weeded. This was based on an initial review of the collection based on circulation statistics, age of content, and first review by subject liaisons. This number was used in initial design and programming of the new building, which was happening in parallel with the collection review process. The first plans had collections filling both the ground floor and the third floor with discrete collections like reference and popular materials living in small footprints on other floors of the now five‐story building. Because it was estimated that up to 1⁄4 of the current collection could be weeded, the internal library building committee began looking at ways to compress the collection into one floor. A decision to utilize compact shelving on the ground floor to house monographs, serials, documentary film, microfilm, microfiche, and oversized collections was made. This freed up space on the third floor for more group study rooms and shared university space, but created a more complicated move of the collection due to the interfiling that would need to occur in order to house various collections on one floor. Soon after the decision to use compact shelving was made, specific shelving units and shelf sizes and configurations were also selected. This forced those planning the collection move to make some mapping decisions related to the collection before the collection review and inventory process completed. It would have been better to complete the inventory and weeding process before making these decisions to ensure that the collection, after weeding, would actually fit appropriately within the selected configuration. But, as with any building/construction project, this is not always possible and those on the move committee had to become flexible and creative in approaches to solving problems that these early decisions created later in the process.
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