UVA Library is celebrating a major milestone: the books in Shannon Library’s stacks are now fully moved in and available to patrons. Each floor in Shannon (aside from the basement and second floor) has two stacks locations — Stacks West and Stacks East. Shannon Library holds social sciences and humanities materials, including literature; bibliographies; and books covering political science, economics, business, and sociology.
UVA Today recently covered the Library’s “book-move-back” project, which entailed moving 1.2 million books back into Shannon and Clemons Libraries from the Ivy Stacks, where they were held during the four-year renovation of the main library, then known as Alderman. Planning for the book-move-back project began in 2021 and the physical moving of the books began 10 months ago, with staff moving 4,000 books a day using a cherry-picker forklift, wooden carts, and elbow grease.
Clemons first floor, which has been closed for the book-move project, will reopen to the public by September 20. And throughout the fall semester, there will be clean-up, validation, and minor shifting of books throughout Shannon. “We anticipate a period of continued manicuring to ensure the stacks contain the materials that are most used and wanted, and representative of our overall collection,” said Caleb Mechem, the Library’s Print Collection Strategist.
Check out UVA Today’s article, which includes a stylish infographic to help readers comprehend the scope of the book-move project.