Day 1: opening keynote by Matthew Sheehy, Harvard University

“So Now We Are Digital, Where Do I Stand and What Do I Do with All This Stuff?”

By Matthew Sheehy, Head of Access Services, Harvard University.

When moving from NYPL to Harvard Depository, he began dealing with print archiving — what print really means.

About the depository

Current status of the print repository at Harvard:

• 8.5 million items
• 450,000 new accessions per year
• 220,000 circulations per year or ~2.5%

The depository itself is 122,000 sq. ft. (97,000 for storage, 22,000 for processing, 3,000 mechanical).

• 30 ft. high shelves
• 5 chillers
• 6 boilers
• Particulate and molecular filters in 8 of the 9 main air handlers.
• 2 back-up generators
• Water tank
• A pump house and storage shed

High security:

• Optical smoke detectors
• Leak detectors
• Wet pipe sprinklers with 250,000 gal. heated water tank
• Motion detectors and glass break detectors

Considerations about collections

• What belongs there? How long is paper relevant?
• Is Harvard a library of record or a research library?
• If not, then we must think of the future of scholarship
• Consent faculty engagement
• Are we doing it for usefulness or sentimentality?

Service/User Expectations

• Delivery options
• When does print stop mattering and just store what we have
• Staying true to the University–are we serving the needs of current/future research?

Ideas being considered

• Going green: solar energy and solar thermal
• Heat reclamation of desiccant wheels
• Rain and grey water reclamation
• Shortening service hours
• Out-sourcing records management
• Stricter control over accessions (last copy debate)

More ideas

• Greater investment in building
• Less investment in building
• Automated retrieval
• Auto sorting
• Low-oxygen environment
• Holistic approach

Problem: present solutions that outlive me. Must be “Harvard first” in focus.

• Print is a format that has outlived centuries, but our electronic media: not so much
• Harvard can’t go it alone — must share despite local perceptions of institutional privilege
• To expect the community of libraries to support us, we must support them
• What happens if some of the collection is lost? Who does Harvard turn to?
• What happens to material that goes unused locally and then disintegrates? But someone else could have used it before it was lost.

We must both preserve AND share the cultural heritage. We have to balance print with digital, not replace it.

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