Comments on: The curse of the moveable stacks

By: dianabuja

dianabuja — Fri, 28 Mar 2014 05:57:49 +0000

P.S. – The stacks at Berkeley were not moveable, although someone once did try to start a fire in the basement. I remember looking up at the library one day and seeing smoke arising from this fine, and grimly thinking that it was not the wonderful collection of books at risk, but also my many notes stored in my carrel. Happily, the fire was quickly put out.

By: dianabuja

dianabuja — Fri, 28 Mar 2014 05:52:32 +0000

Good story and reminds me of the graduate stacks at Berkeley, which are awsome – about 9 stories of them. Although I arrived at Berkeley well after the time of Regan as governor, there continued a dark humor joke – that he had proposed all of the several millions of books and periodicals in the stacks be photocopied and sold to other campuses, as a money-making venture. Well, perhaps now not so far from reality.

By: anthrodiva (@anthrodiva)

anthrodiva (@anthrodiva) — Thu, 27 Mar 2014 20:00:04 +0000

Yes.

By: Matthew Timothy Bradley

Matthew Timothy Bradley — Thu, 27 Mar 2014 15:50:18 +0000

The first time I ever saw movable stacks was at the CRC in Suitland (one of the NMAI facilities, and the one where most of the objects are stored). I had never heard of such a thing and thought they were kind of Star Trek-y and super cool. Still do.

By: Servetus

Servetus — Thu, 27 Mar 2014 15:32:06 +0000

There were signs on ours saying you shouldn’t go into them if you weighed less than 50 lbs. I was never consciously afraid, but both times I had panic attacks during my comps a fear of being crushed in movable shelving was involved.

By: Carolyn

Carolyn — Thu, 27 Mar 2014 15:28:08 +0000

In my 20s I worked in a library with a room of rolling stacks. In my junior role there I had to reshelve the books. I was shelving in the last bay which backed onto a window with a deep windowsill. Being a lazy sod, I decided that, instead of hunting down the elusive kickstep, I would just climb on the windowsill to shelf the books on to the top shelves. I was happily working away standing on my windowsill when someone came in. I froze. I knew it was wrong and definitely a health and safety risk. I might get fired! I stood still, hoping they would not see me. To my horror, they started to turn the handle and the stacks started to roll towards me. I stayed as still as possible and flattened myself against the window. The person then left the room but of course left the stacks in that position. Once they had gone, I had to push on the shelves and move them enough to squeeze out. No kickstep was ever again to far away for me to fetch!

By: julian

julian — Thu, 27 Mar 2014 15:15:18 +0000

Not afraid, no, but I certainly wondered about it. There’s something about them that makes me not want to hang about in them.

By: Dick Powis

Dick Powis — Thu, 27 Mar 2014 15:04:22 +0000

Well now I am. Thank you Matt. 🙂

By: Arianna

Arianna — Thu, 27 Mar 2014 14:59:12 +0000

Matt,
Is it weird that I liked hanging out in the library stacks because I knew that no one else would be there? I found it peaceful and I always seemed to find a book that proved to be useful, even if I wasn’t consciously seeking it out. In some ways it was the only “me time” that I could squeeze in during the day. Overall, I think it’s more troubling that students are disregarding these resources. I’ve found some amazing electronic resources, but I generally hit a wall when I don’t expand my search.