In broad terms, the Off-site Project is a way for the library to remove less useful items in order to make room for new acquisitions. It involves 4 stages 1) pulling 2) vetting 3) updating 4) packing
Pulling
The circulation manager generates a list of eligible books using circulation data in ALMA. This is the “pull list” that we use to find books that we want to send off-site. Every call number on the list represents a book that hasn’t circulated enough to be deemed useful to museum staff and patrons by Reader Services.
Beyond that criterion, there are two other factors that determine whether it is a good idea to send a book off-site. They are: Size and Condition.
Size - when you are scheduled to pull off-site items, you will want to only pull books that are over 100 pages long. Extremely thin books don’t make sense to pull because the amount of shelf space we gain from their absences doesn’t offset the amount of work it is to pull, process and ship them. When you come across books from the pull list that are too skinny, just leave them behind on the shelf and move on to more substantial books. There is a small tab on the upper left corner of the clipboard that holds the pull list that you can use as a reference for how thin a book has to be to be considered too thin.
Condition - The matter of condition is handled by conservation (as you are about to see in the next section on vetting). However, if you come across as book at any time during the off-site process that you feel is in too poor of condition to be packed in a plastic crate and shipped to the storage facility, feel free to remove it from the process and return it to the self (making sure to return its permanent location back to the proper stack area if it has already been updated).
Vetting
Every book that is pulled is vetted by the conservation department for condition to make sure that a trip to the off-site facility will not do too much damage to it. Many books are removed and given enclosures to provide support before they are updated and packed.
Ranges 68 and 69 on Stack 3 are where we have located the “staging area” for books going off-site. Once books are pulled, they should be added to whichever shelf has the red sign reading “Offsite Conservation Pending”. After a shipment’s worth of books have accumulated, Conservation will vet them and flip the sign to green so that it reads “Offsite Ready for Packing”
It is important to only add freshly-pulled books to the range with the red sign and only take books from the range with the green sign downstairs to be updated and packed
Updating
When we send books off-site, we also have to send the catalog records for the books. In order to make sure that we know exactly which books are being sent, we take some time before packing to update the Permanent Location of each book in ALMA. This makes it easy to run a list of all the books packed in the red bins when we are ready to ship.
The location we use for this purpose is “AAA temp”. What follows are step-by-step instructions for properly updating off-site items to the “AAA temp” location:
Step 0) Make sure the cart of books you are updating has been vetted by conservation by taking only books from the shelf range labeled with the green sign that reads “Ready for Packing”
Step 1) Log into ALMA on the receivint room computer the same way you would at the circulation desk (User Name 1901123, Password rb19moon)
Step 2) Select “Physical Items” and “barcode” as the search terms on the persistent search bar
Step 3) Scan the barcode of the book you wish to update. Press Return.
Step 4) Click on the “Edit Item” button on the top right area of the record that comes up
Step 5) Scroll down to the Location area of the Physical Item Editor and change the Permanent Location of the item from its current stack location to “AAA temp”
Step 6) Hit Return or click on the red “Save” button at the top right part of the screen
Step 7) Hit Return or click “Confirm” to confirm that you are sure that you want to perform this action.
This will return you to the screen with the persistent search bar.
Step 8) Place the cursor in the search bar in order to scan the barcode of the next book.
Step 9) Place the updated book on the desk to your right.
Step 10) Continue updating books by repeating steps 3-9
Packing
After you have updated enough books to fill a bin, you will get up from your chair and gently place the books spine down into one of the red bins. Each bin should only have one layer of spine-down books in it. Sometimes these will be in a single row across the length of the bin, sometimes you will have the books rowed in two configurations in order to accommodate taller books. In either case, you want to fill the bin with enough books so that they are firmly packed to reduce the amount of movement they’ll experience in transit. You will also want to be aware to make sure there is enough clearance for the overlapping bin lids to close without touching or putting pressure on any book.
Stacking bins. It is easiest to stack the bins while they are empty and fill them with books only after they are in the proper configuration on the pallets. The proper configuration is that two pallets should have 16 bins each and two should have 20 bins each. We accomplish this by stack them in two configurations. Two pallets in a four by four grid (the four bin footprint stacked four bins high[FIG. 1]) and two pallets in a five by four pattern (a five bin footprint stacked four bins high [FIG 2])
FIG 1FIG 2
For safety reasons, off-site bins should never be stacked more than four bins high.
IMPORTANT: if your updating and packing hour doesn’t end neatly or if you get interrupted during your work, it is important to obey the convention that any books on the desk have already had their location updated while any books still on carts are yet to be updated.
For info about how books are prepped and stored at the Oak Grove Library Center, visit
