As the Rubenstein Library moves out of our space in original West Campus library building, it also means we won’t be using the 1928 elevator to carry us through all seven floors of the building anymore. While I could never decide if I found this elevator endearing or frightening, I think I’m going to miss its old school charms. It has a heavy metal door and a brass gate that need to be opened and closed by hand, as well as instructions on how to use the button and the door and gate.
If you want a chance to experience the thrills of Otis yourself, here’s a little video of a trip from the third floor up to the sixth floor in our former home.
Moving the bound-withs required a ladder. (Bound-withs are separately published pamphlets or titles, bound together into 1 book.)
We have made a lot of progress this week, moving everything from domestic advertisements from the Hartman Center to bound-withs to ledgers to more History of Medicine materials to our small manuscript collections. It’s time for another weekend. More updates next week!
The weather for the past week has been nothing but rain here in North Carolina. Just for fun, I looked up the January 17, 1862 entry in this diary from Philadelphia, and guess what I found?
January 17, 1862: Not very pleasant.
January 17, 1862: Not very pleasant. (It was also “rainy and unpleasant” on January 18.) Perhaps this woman should have borrowed J. Walter Thompson’s umbrella, from the J. Walter Thompson Artifacts and Memorabilia collection.
J. Walter Thompson’s umbrella.
Despite the rain, both of these collections safely made it to swing space today.
Things are rolling right along in Week 2 of the move. We’re working closely with the LSC as they ingest most of our books and manuscripts from the old stacks. At the same time, our fragile, oddly sized, and highly used collections are moving to swing space. This means we have lots of carts in motion.
Folios waiting for shelving in swing space.Beautifully trayed books waiting to go to LSC.Well-padded carts getting loaded onto the movers’ truck.
It’s been great to see all our giant books (folios, in library-speak) come out of our old stacks and into their bright and dust-free new home. I’m of the opinion that if you are going to print a large book, it should include large pictures. This copy of The Raven caught my eye as it went by on the book trucks.
Rubenstein Library On the Move is off to a great start. Our new swing space is open for business and we’ve welcomed a dozen researchers to the new reading room.
We’ve also welcomed our movers, who have made excellent progress this week by packing up the Rare Book Room, moving almost all of our folios into swing space, and shipping over lots trays of books to LSC.
Our new reading room has been busy this week.New reading room desk (with our smiling happy faces!)The Biddle Rare Book Room is now empty of books.Our stacks in swing space are quickly filling up with folios!
We’re looking forward to a restful weekend before getting started with Week 2!
Welcome to the fourth installment of the photo diary of the Rubenstein Library’s move. Like proud new parents, we present to you the firsts from this week of the collections move…
The first manuscript boxes moved into our new stacks.Holdings Assistant Carrie Mills, signing in for the first security shift of the collections move.
Welcome to the third installment of the photo diary of the Rubenstein Library’s move. Today marks the first day of our collections move. Time to use our spiffy new aprons and fill up all of those book trays!
Megan Lewis, Technical Services Archivist for the Sallie Bingham Center, in the official 2013 Rubenstein Library collections move apron.An expanse of book trays for safely moving our rare books.
Welcome to the second installment of the photo diary of the Rubenstein Library’s move! We’re going to start off by showing you our new secure stacks, the future home of many of our archival collections and rare printed materials for the duration of the renovation.
Our new stacks!
Nice and empty, right? But they were a teensy bit dusty . . . So we organized a Rubenstein staff flash dusting mob yesterday afternoon!
Our dusting cloths. We apologize for their color.The dusting flash mob in action.
And now our new stacks are clean and ready to be loaded with collections materials. Just in time, too, because the collections move starts on Monday!
Dear readers, did you enjoy your winter break? We did, too—but we were busy!
Since December 17th, we’ve been packing our offices, our reading room, our common workspaces—basically, everything that’s not a rare book or archival collection—and moved to our new digs on the 3rd floor of Perkins Library. This is where you’ll come to do research (and visit us!) during the renovation, which is currently slated for completion in the summer of 2015.
Now that we’re all settled into our new space, we’ll be spending the rest of January and the first half of February moving our collections from their current stacks locations to our 3rd floor Perkins stacks or to the Library Service Center. (Yes, you’ll still be able to visit and do research during this collections move. Visit our “FAQ for Researchers” to learn more about researching at the Rubenstein Library during the move period.)
Since we need all hands on deck to ensure that our collections are moved safely and securely, we’re going to be temporarily turning the blog into a photo diary of the move process. Check back a few times each week to get a behind-the-scenes glimpse at a logistical process that’s been a couple of years in the making! (And the blog will return to its normal self on February 18th.)
And now, we present “What We Did Over Our Winter Vacation” by the Rubenstein Staff:
Our paper finding aids are packed and ready to go! What’s a finding aid?Doughnuts increase packing efficiency. Especially when they’re homemade salted caramel chocolate doughnuts. We were surprised to find even one left when we arrived to take this photo.3rd floor Perkins Reading Room, before the move.3rd floor Perkins Reading Room, after the move. Looks like home!
While I could never decide if I found this elevator endearing or frightening, I think I’m going to miss its old school charms. It has a heavy metal door and a brass gate that need to be opened and closed by hand, as well as instructions on how to use the button and the door and gate.
