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Re: what do you call your archival storage?



Someone asked: "Is it Friday yet?"; not even close!  Although I'm
still in the been-out-of-the-office-for-a-few-days mode, so it might as
well be.  The printer doesn't work, the researcher is trying to stiff
you on the fees, I'm ready to throw my cheap phone out the
window, yadda yadda.

Alas, our storage area is a mundane "the stacks"; even the remote
storage is just Bldg 213, although its address is officially 666
Guardsman's Way, but we don't let that get out much.  Our only
contribution to this bestiary is the Glass Room, which is just that;
a glassed-off area in the back corner of the 5th floor, sort of the
junction between Manuscripts and Multimedia Archives.  It was
designed as a reading room/processing room/office, and was of
course too small from the start.  When I first started my tables
were in there; as were three tables for patrons; and the desk of the
formidable Della Dye, the manuscripts librarian, who was known as
the Dellatollah.  So only when she was gone (and you could hear
her all over the floor in her high heels) could I relax.  And from
where I sat, right by the door, the acoustics were such that you
could hear any conversation from the director's office.  I did several
big collections there before I moved into the back, and before I
became a minor functionary instead of a collection specialist.

So when this side of the building was rennovated about four years
ago we moved across  to The Other Side, which given the cramped
conditions we lived in for over a year might as well be The Dark
Side.  When we were moving back, the whole administrative
floorplan was re-done and the MssDiv folks wanted to take down
the Glass Room.  For sentimental reasons, that I backed up with
good practical reasons, I didn't want to, but was willing to go along
in the interest of collegiality.  So here comes the plant operations
crew to disassemble the Glass Room, which is actually pretty big;
sheets of glass 12x9 feet.  First they took down the wall attached
to the Glass Room, which used to seperate two areas, and in so
doing found that not only is a piece of glass that size a chore to
remove, the Glass Room foundations consisted of 1/2" thick
structural steel that was built into the floor and stuck up about 4
inches; like the edge of an I-beam.  The edge had to be cut off and
ground down, a very noisy and time-consuming process, and with
that discovery there went the idea of removing the Glass Room, to
my secret delight.  I even suggested that they use the room as the
architectural collection area, which was adopted although what's in
there now is just a fraction of our architectural holdings.  Now the
room is just waiting for a rich donor/architect to come along with
sufficient inducements and we'll put his/her name on the door.

I promise I'm actually working too,


Roy Webb, C.A.
Multimedia Archivist
Special Collections
J. Willard Marriott Library
295 South 1500 East
University of Utah
Salt Lake City, Utah   84112
(801) 585-3073  //  fax (801) 585-3976
rwebb@library.utah.edu

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