Hi Charlotte,
We have a lot of experience in this area. To be frank, it highly depends on quantities of different types of materials you are storing. For example, we fit about 350k items per aisle based on our overall average, but aisles that don't have any boxed material (like archival boxes) can hold 20%-25% more. We have also found that our libraries that store a higher percentage of serials have a significantly lower number of average items on shelves.
Our methodology is not dissimilar to yours, but we have the luxury of having a large facility with four large libraries. That gives us a lot of data allowing us a greater resolution.
We're happy to talk in detail if you like.
Ian Bogus
Executive Director
Research Collections and Preservation Consortium (ReCAP)
400 Forrestal Road
Princeton, NJ 08540
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Ian Bogus
Executive Director
ReCAP (Research Collections & Preservation Consortium)
He/Him/His
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Original Message:
Sent: Oct 03, 2022 03:44 PM
From: Charlotte Johnson
Subject: Advice on Predicting Capacity
Hello everyone,
I've been tasked to figure out how many volumes our high-density facility can theoretically store. I'm a little sheepish asking this, but how have other facilities predicted this number ("such-and-such library can hold up to 3mil volumes," for example)?
So far, I've taken an average number of items per range based on what we already have filled and then applied it to the amount of empty ranges we have yet to fill for a rough estimate. Is it as simple as that?
Thanks in advance for any advice,
Charlotte
Charlotte M. Johnson (she/her) | @liber_aesthete
Research Collection Coordinator, ULS Thomas Blvd
University Library System
University of Pittsburgh
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