When Monticello Library opens later this year, it will house a circulating collection of almost 100,000 items: books, CDs and DVDs. There are also shelves for Holds, Periodicals and Newspapers. That’s a lot of shelves, at least 1900 linear feet at last count.
Our resident specialists in shelf capacity and location are Michelle Olsen, Circulation Manager, and Lacie Griffin, Collection Development Manager. As part of the building design and construction process, they’ve logged hundreds of hours poring over layouts, blueprints, floorplans and diagrams to maximize our shelf locations to make as much material as possible available to patrons of our newest branch.
As you may well understand, they like to get it right the first time. A “range” of shelves is made of 7 shelving units side-by-side and back-to-back. Each unit contains 5 shelves and is 64” tall x 36” wide x 12” deep. SO: each 21-foot long range contains 70 shelves, and at an estimated 100 pounds per shelf, that’s almost 4 tons of books! It takes a lot to get them moved, so you can see why we do so much planning!