LSF at 25

Inside the Library Shelving Facility that safeguards Yale’s world-class collections

By Yale Library

April 25^th, 2024

Established 25 years ago in Hamden, Connecticut, the Library Shelving Facility (LSF) is a critical player in Yale Library’s ongoing evolution to meet the changing needs of students, faculty, and other library patrons. Located just three miles from Sterling Memorial Library, LSF provides climate-controlled storage optimized for long-term preservation, high-tech retrieval, and rapid delivery service to locations across campus of more than 8 million books and other items, including rare and fragile special collections materials.

The efficiency and expertise of LSF’s staff—not only in securely moving and tracking such a high volume of physical materials but also in scanning and delivering digital materials—are critical to the excellent service Yale Library is consistently able to provide.

In its first quarter century, LSF has enabled Yale Library to continue building its circulating print collections and extraordinary special collections, even as the library rapidly increases investment in e-books and licensed e-resources. In the 25 years since LSF was founded, Yale Library has significantly grown its collection size, adding more than 7 million books and items—a transformation that would not have been possible without the space and services LSF provides.

“Storage, preservation, services, and people. More than a critical storage facility, LSF is an essential service center with expert staff.”

—Barbara Rockenbach, Stephen F. Gates ’68 University Librarian

With its 64,000 square feet of processing and storage space, LSF enabled major library renovations in support of new academic programs, new approaches to teaching and learning, and Yale’s expansions to educate a greater number of students. Today, with LSF in place, Yale Library offers more small-group collaboration spaces, in-library classrooms, opportunities to teach with special collections and technology, and support for data-intensive research.

In the narrative below, Michael DiMassa, the first director of LSF, outlines the facility's history and its central role in supporting Yale Library's mission, its increasingly complex operations, and its ongoing commitment to physical collections in the digital age.

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“By the mid-1990s, Yale Library was growing beyond its capacity. It was adding about 250,000 volumes to its collections each year. The situation in Sterling Memorial Library was particularly acute. By early 1997, the installation of air-conditioning ductwork had displaced thousands of linear feet of shelving. Overflow areas made patrons’ discovery process and staff maintenance of Sterling Library’s collection difficult. At the same time, the school libraries, the more than a dozen departmental libraries, and the university’s major special collections depositories were all experiencing similar space problems.

“Library administrators sought a solution. One idea was to build another library on campus—although the high cost and the lack of available real estate presented obstacles. The alternate solution was to construct an off-campus shelving facility in Hamden, Connecticut, just 3 miles from campus. An offsite facility offered several advantages: the capability to carefully control temperature and humidity to preserve the fragile materials in the collections and the possibility of ongoing expansion (which in fact occurred, adding eight more shelving modules to LSF over the course of 25 years).

“Construction of the Hamden facility began in 1997, and LSF opened on November 30, 1998. Over the next few months, roughly 28,000 archival boxes of materials from Manuscripts and Archives special collections were transferred from campus to the new building.

“As work was about to begin on the transfer of general collection materials, however, many students, faculty, and even some of the library’s own subject specialists objected. They were concerned that items might be difficult to track or could be easily mislocated in a large warehouse. They were also concerned that patrons would have to wait a week or more to receive materials in transit. Some feared the loss of the experience of ‘discovery by serendipity’ without patrons having the opportunity to browse the stacks.

“Library administrators addressed these concerns with a promise for meticulous attention to the accessioning and shelving processes to ensure no items would be lost. They also committed to Monday-to-Friday delivery of all requested materials within 24 hours, via Eli Express, the library’s intralibrary delivery van.

Sterling Library stacks hold more than 3 million volumes. Without LSF, Yale would need to build two additional stack towers on campus and begin work on a third.

—Daniel Dollar, Associate University Librarian for Scholarly Resources

“In 1999, materials from the general collections at Sterling Library began to be transferred to LSF. An LSF team—charged with the on-campus processing of books for transfer to off-campus shelving—quickly grew from three to seven members. Eventually, this team would work at libraries throughout the Yale Library system.

“A series of renovations to several library buildings across campus necessitated relocating portions of additional collections to LSF. The Divinity Library was renovated in 1999 to encourage a greater sense of community, upgrade its facilities, and develop new programs. The Cross Campus Library (now Bass Library) was renovated in 2004 to create more study spaces for students. Plans for expansion of the Arts Library (now the Robert B. Haas Family Arts Library) required relocating materials in 2005.

“By 2005, more than 2 million items had been successfully transferred and securely stored at LSF—under the direction of the Collection Space Management Steering Committee. A uniform 80 percent shelf occupancy was achieved at all the university libraries. Access Services staff then took over. Earlier doubts were silenced due to LSF staff’s demonstrated ability to securely shelve, retrieve, and deliver requested materials in a timely manner.

The long success that LSF has enjoyed reflects the combined efforts of so many people throughout the university—from the administrators who had the foresight to support the building of an off-site facility to the current staff, who, day in and day out, exercise the diligence and attention to detail required to make LSF operations the envy of similar operations nationwide.

—Michael DiMassa, manager of Yale University Shelving Facility, 1998 to 2010

“In 2007, a collaborative initiative among managers, librarians, and other staff from several library units and from Preservation and Conservation Services further improved security and handling procedures for collections materials during transport and delivery.

“From 2009 to 2011, in a complicated series of transfers, nearly 200,000 items were moved to LSF from what were then the Social Science Library and the Kline Science Library. The rest of those collections found a home in the new Center for Science and Social Science Information (now Marx Science and Social Science Library).

“These complicated moves paled in comparison with the task of decommissioning the Seeley G. Mudd Library—home to 1.4 million bound volumes, 632,000 government documents, an extensive collection of microfilm negatives, and priceless, fragile, historical sound recordings. With minimal term hires and a vendor’s help with the moving, LSF completed the transfer of materials from Mudd Library under budget and in record time. From July 2011 through June 2012, LSF took in and shelved more than 1 million items.

“In 2010, LSF joined Yale Library’s Shipping and Receiving Department to form Library Collection Services (LCS). In 2012, LCS began the Scan-and-Deliver Program, producing digital scans of general collection materials shelved at LSF to fulfill e-reserve requests and direct requests from library patrons.

Over 25 years, LSF has built a reputation for running like a well-oiled machine. But as well earned as that reputation is, it’s important to remember that the LSF operation is not a machine—it’s people, dedicated, hardworking, service-focused people who, every day, make sure that more than 8 million library resources are available for research and teaching.

—Christopher Killheffer, director of Library Collection Services and Operations, 2019 to present

(left to right: David Joyner, Chris Killheffer)

“From 2018 to 2020, during a second renovation of Bass Library—to expand study spaces and introduce more natural lighting—Sterling Library transferred more than 400,000 items from its sixth and seventh floors to LSF in order to temporarily shelve the books from Bass. The transfers also provided Sterling Library with additional space to shift the books in the stack tower so they would run sequentially in the Library of Congress call number system.

“Renovations to the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library and to Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, from 2012 to 2015, required transfers of portions of those libraries’ collections. These transfers of materials made it possible to repurpose former library spaces to create classrooms for new teaching and learning initiatives.

(Gary Burcheski leading a tour for students)

“Throughout its history, LSF has constantly been evolving, continually adding new services. As LSF begins its next quarter century, it is poised to meet several new challenges.

“One of the most critical is finding a replacement for the inventory management software system that has been a mainstay of shelving facility operations for the past 25 years. As library administrators explore new collaborative solutions to housing and sharing collections across institutional boundaries, LSF stands ready to support whatever collection development strategy is most beneficial for the university and its patrons.”

I have seen a lot of change and have been involved in many projects, each with its own set of benefits and challenges. Through it all, our continued success has been a testament to the exceptional staff, our unwavering commitment to innovation and efficiency, and the support from partners throughout Yale Library. As I think about the future, I am excited about finding new strategies, creating and developing new innovations, working with our dedicated team, and maintaining our positive partnerships across the Yale Library community.

—Gary Burcheski, manager of Library Collections Services, 2006 to present

(LSF staff members, from left to right: Roque Roman, John Charczynski, Mike Dadio, Earl Marina, Ian Cassell, Mark Lombard, David Joyner, Pawel Sawicki, Shane Gray, Gary Burcheski)

Michael DiMassa was the manager of LSF from 1998 to 2010. From 2010 to 2013, he was director of the LSF and Transport and, from 2013 to 2021, director of Library Collection Services. DiMassa also served as the head of the Seely G. Mudd Library from 2011 to 2013, during the relocation of the collections shelved there.

Visual story by Deborah Cannarella and Monica Reed. Timeline photographs courtesy of Manuscripts and Archives and the Yale Office of Public Affairs and Communications. Videos and photo of student tour by Monica Reed. All other photographs by Robert Lisak.