OPEN ACCESS COMPACTUS – CAUL Survey
Questions:
1 Do you have onsite (i.e. other than at external stores) compactus in your library?
2 If YES, do you have open access or closed access compactus * i.e. access is available to library patrons as well as to library staff. Please indicate what you have:
(a) Closed access only
(b) Open access only
(c ) Both
3 If you answered YES to (b) or (c), what materials do you keep in open access compactus?
(a) Back runs of journals
(b) Journals, current and backsets
(c) Monographs
(d) other (please indicate what)
4 If you have journals in open access compactus, please indicate whether and if so how the collection is divided between this and other forms of open access.
5 If you have open access compactus, please provide some indication of your experience with it * in particular, problems and advantages, OH&S and disability issues if any.
SUMMARY OF RESPONSES
OPEN ACCESS COMPACTUS SURVEY - Swinburne /1 / 2 / 3 / 4
University / Onsite compactus? / Open or closed? / What is in open access compactus? / Dividing the collection
ACU / no / NA / NA / N/A
Bond University / yes / closed / NA / N/A
CDU / yes / closed / NA / N/A
Charles Sturt / yes / closed / NA / N/A
Curtin / yes / both / back runs / Journals shelved separately on compactus in the reading rooms. Journals & monos for same classification sequences are shelved on each floor.
Deakin / yes / both / (a) and (c ) / At Geelong - journals - current 2 years on standard shelving with backsets in compactus. At Melbourne - specialist monographs (e.g. Royal Society) - not mainstream collections.
Edith Cowan / yes / both / video cassettes / N/A
Flinders / yes / closed / NA / N/A
Griffith / yes / both / all categories / Law and govt publications in open access at Nathan.
James Cook / yes / closed / NA / N/A
La Trobe / yes / both / back runs / At Bundoora campus there is an extensive compactus bounded by walls on Level 1. A small section of this is (approx. one eighth) open to the public and access is through a doorway from the stacks housing current journals.
Lincoln / yes / open only / journals / No division, as the open access compactus is just part of the main sequence of the serials collection
Monash / yes / both / (a) and (c ) / Only some older journal backsets are in open access compactus. Physically there is quite some distance between the compactus area and where most journals are shelved.
QUT / yes / closed / NA / N/A
RMIT / yes / closed / NA / N/A
Swinburne / yes / closed / NA / N/A
Univ. Adelaide / yes / both / Law reports & old monos / Back runs of law reports held in compactus; these are in-active subscriptions available
online. We might eventually move these back runs to remote storage, but some are frequently used by community users.
U. Auckland / yes / open / back runs / MED: 1970-1998 journals are on compactus, which is located at the back of the Library. (Pre-1970, cancelled runs and volumes duplicated by reliable e-access are at the Library's Off-Campus facility).
U. Ballarat / yes / closed / NA / N/A
U. Canberra / yes / closed / NA / N/A
UNE / yes / closed / NA / N/A
UNSW / yes / closed / NA / N/A
U. Newcastle / yes / both / Closed serial runs (90%) & monographs / Units containing books are colour coded with an appropriate OPAC location - eg Open Stack- Red. Serials are arranged in Dewey order as Auch Orange - Stack - compactus units are labelled accordingly
Univ. Queensland / yes / closed / NA / N/A
UniSA / yes / closed / NA / N/A
USC / no / NA / NA / N/A
U. Sydney / yes / closed / NA / N/A
U. Tasmania / yes / both / back runs / UTAS Science Library: serials published prE-1990 located in the compactus; post 1990+ are on open access shelving.
UTS / no / NA / NA / N/A
Univ Wollongong / yes / both / Reference backsets & less-used law / N/A
Victoria Univ / yes / both / Monos & law reports / N/A
Number of respondents: 31
Comments (Question 5)
CURTIN UNIVERSITY
We had considerable problems with malfunctioning and breakdown of our electronically controlled compactus up until about 18 months ago. These problems were primarily caused by overloading in some sequences, especially the science and medical/nursing journals where there were long runs of heavy bound journals. These also were the most heavily used. In the end we had to convert the compactus shelving for this part of the collection to manual
operation and subsequently followed this up by offloading the current and
previous year's issues onto adjacent standard library shelving. The collections in other areas have also been spread more evenly to reduce overloading. These actions have minimised breakdowns and malfunctions and the number of client complaints involving the compactus have also dropped down considerably. I'm not aware of any recent OH&S incident reports
involving the compactus.
DEAKIN UNIVERSITY
We would prefer not to use compactus in an ideal world and have everything on standard shelving. Wheelchair access is problematic with compactus. General access and re-shelving is slower.
EDITH COWAN UNIVERSITY
Advantage: economical storage space. Disadvantage: Difficult to browse collections, some users find it difficult to move sections, only one user can access at a time. We are planning to use normal shelving for open access videos.
GRIFFITH UNIVERSITY
I am not aware of any problems with our use of compactus. We offer a retrieval service for users with disabilities which includes material in the compactus.
LATROBE UNIVERSITY
The only issue relates to material on the upper shelves working its way to the front edge with the constant moving of the ranges. Serials staff annually check for this and push material back onto the top shelves. Note: there are 8 shelves (approx. 3 metres high). In the closed compactus area there is an OH&S issue with material at the edge of the upper shelves and we have been trying to address this problem (not easily resolved).
LINCOLN UNIVERSITY
Advantages - takes less space than normal open shelving, currently houses approx. a quarter of the collection, good for low use items (though this isn't how we now use this shelving as it is currently part of the main sequence).
Disadvantages - harder to adjust shelves as all are bolted together, can be noisy when units collide with one another, floor had to be strengthened to provide support, a flat floor is essential but even with the best effort to achieve this most units have a life of their own and roll in one direction or another, cumbersome and heavy, hard to shelve into because of their weight and because they are liable to roll on their own, can be dangerous if you want to move a unit and someone else is further along between other units, users find them difficult to move and control while searching for items, can't display items at various intervals with angle shelves, can't provide integrated reading shelves in the sequence.
The type of shelving we have allows for each unit to move individually on rails. Some
other types have an interconnecting chain or link that means several units move
together, where ours does not. Our shelving has every sixth unit fixed so only a limited
amount of speed and momentum can be gained if someone deliberately tries to cause
damage.
MONASH UNIVERSITY
Although we provide 'open' access this is to a locked area for which keys are issued from the information desk. Those issued with keys to the compactus area are checked on periodically. Clients with disabilities may have material retieved by Library staff. There are safety gate devices which may be used to ensure that shelves are held apart to prevent clients being squashed. The compactus mechanism is manually operated. Library clients are advised to check that others are not in the aisles between shelves without using the safety gates before moving bays.
UNIVERSITY OF AUCKLAND
UNIVERSITY OF AUCKLAND MED: We receive no negative feedback - we've had it for many years, so perhaps our users are just used to it, and most people understand that pressure for space for within the Faculty - having it on compactus is preferrable to having it off-site. Last year we installed a new floor and compactus shelving, and we've had to liaise with Hydestor about some minor mechanical issues. The material is still pretty much inaccessible for users with disabilities, but this isn't a terribly different issue from having to help them retrieve material from the higher open shelves. We are a medium-sized library, so that is not unmanageable.
UNIVERSITY OF NEWCASTLE
We decided to place serials in Open stack as its far easier to page (request) books from the Closed Stack locations which are staff only access. We have had problems with the winding and gear mechanisms for the Open Stack compactus units- clients try and move too many units in one go, causing breakages. Overall, the public seems to work in with this high density storage option for infrequently used resources.
UNIVERSITY OF TASMANIA
UTAS Science Library: yes, it saves considerable space, but it has almost constant problems, requiring staff time and skill in their remedy and frequent service calls. I have real concerns about OH&S issues and have requested that staff not try pushing or pulling the units manually. Some of the problems we have are unique to the Science Library, there is
underground instability which causes the Units to move and therefore puts the sensors out of alignment, it also causes the tracks that they move on to move as well, which means the Units quite often jam. These problems are compounded by the incorrect usage of them by the students: despite our best efforts to train them they still press buttons repeatedly and kick the safety kick bar, which both cause ongoing problems. Weight is a real issue as well; if there is too much weight in each unit that can also impede their efficient use.
UNIVERSITY OF WOLLONGONG
We have a rather large open compactus area to house:
- back sets of Reference material that are still required
- Large runs of lesser used Law material
We have placed signs on the outside asking clients to make sure there is nobody else in the compactus before they turn the handles. (We have not found any squashed clients). Seriously we have not had any OH&S issues It would be very annoying to have this locked and to open it for users.
VICTORIA UNIVERSITY
Monographs and law reports on open access in the Law Library in Queen Street, City.
We had a problem originally at the Law Library because there was no security gate on it so people were likely to get squashed.
Derek Whitehead
25 June, 2004