Abstract

Finding an appropriate temporary storage location for books and providing access to them is a significant challenge for libraries undergoing renovations. The current article describes the use of a document management company by an academic library to store 430,000 books for eight months and provide a retrieval-on-demand service. Aspects covered include the selection of a commercial storage provider with its own retrieval service; details of the move to and from offsite storage; the integration of the service with library processes; communications and user feedback; book usage during the storage period; overall costs; and lessons learned from the experience.