Where old books go out to pasture

Boy, you'd think the Daily Illini folks were reading this blog. On today's front page, there's a lovely story all about the Oak Street high-density storage facility. And an even lovelier picture.



Yes, those are shelves stretching out of sight above John's and Daleann's heads. For 40-feet. You need a forklift to shelve books up that high. As the article notes, the books are stored in boxes according to size, not call number. Come early summer, the Uni High Library staff (that's Runelle, Corinne, and me) will pitch in 164 hours of manual labor helping get 800,000 books into those boxes.