I have always been in favor of compact shelving, but recently one was
installed at one of our university-related offices.  To my surprise, I
watched the staff have problems with wanting to retrieve materials because
of only one aisle at a time.  It became apparent to me that, yes you could
gain additional storage space, but at the expense of staff efficiency in
retrieval, making users wait longer, and the difficulties of having more
than one staff member or one project going on at the same time.

Our facility is an archives and history center, so my recommendations
changed.  I am recommending compact shelving for more remote areas where we
are storing permanent collections or backlog and NOT for active areas.
The activity may, of course, vary but it became apparent to me that I could
not have simultaneous staff and ongoing retrieval and refiling of records,
archival boxes, rare books, and the like--all occuring at the same time,
but delayed often by having to stop and move aisles.

One response mentioned refoldering 90,000-100,000 items to gain space.
Frankly that is something I would not do.

Dean


Dean DeBolt, University Librarian (Professor)/University Archivist
University Archives and West Florida History Center
University of West Florida Library
11000 University Parkway
Pensacola, FL  32514-5750
[log in to unmask];   850-474-2213

West Florida History Center is the largest and most comprehensive
history collection about Pensacola and the West Florida region.
http://libguides.uwf.edu/universityarchives

Digital collections can be found at:  http://archives.uwf.edu/Archon/
<http://143.88.66.76/Archon/>

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