Massive Relocation of Collections to the New 5th and 6th Floors Set to Begin

Since its early planning stages the primary focus of the 5th and 6th floor construction project has been the construction itself, the effort to build back the areas of the library flooded and destroyed after Hurricane Katrina. But in the background that effort was always closed related to the collections recovery and rebuilding that provided most of the resources to be housed in the new space. In the further background, as the construction neared it completion, there would need to be one last major undertaking:  a massive effort to move collections, equipment, and staff into the new spaces so that the area can be opened for use by students and faculty.

The move of collections to the 5th and 6th floors is set to begin this week, although the first several days will be largely devoted to one final round of planning and logistical analysis.  Through a formal bidding process Tulane has selected a library moving company called Library Design Systems (LDS), based in Houston, TX, to do this work.   The project will require LDS to move about 50,000 linear feet of library materials, presently housed in several temporary locations, to library's new 5th and 6th floors. The build-back library addition has general "static" shelving for books and government documents on its 5th and 6th floors. On its 6th floor it has three areas of high density shelving for music books, music and media recordings, and rare books. The 6th floor also has an area for microforms.

The temporary locations currently housing collections to be moved include:

• The library’s off-site storage facility at 900 S. Jefferson Davis Parkway about two miles for the uptown Tulane campus. 
• The 7th and 4th stacks levels in Jones Hall, located directly across and less than 100 yards from the Howard-Tilton building 
• A temporary area for Music & Media located on the 4th floor of the Howard-Tilton building 
• The open stacks areas in the northeast quadrant of the 4th floor of the Howard-Tilton building and other areas of the open stacks on floors 2-3. 
• A temporary area for Microforms & Newspapers located on the 2nd floor of the Howard-Tilton building

All the above is expected to be accomplished with an estimated period of about 16-20 working days, with the main goal to have most of the material in place before the start of the spring semester.  During this same period other crews will move the staff equipment and supplies needed to operate the services to be provided on the new floors. 

The scope of work for the collection move includes a final phase, requiring an additional estimated 12 working days, in which collections will be shifted to restore lower floor spaces of the library to their original use prior to Katrina, after which large areas of study and user space were filled in with temporary shelving.  This phase is expected to take place in the early portion of the spring semester in the general stacks areas of the library's 2nd, 3rd, and 4th floors.