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Library Library

Depot collections: The Library launches an ambitious plan

Use of space will be reduced and special collections will be made available

2 March 2021

The space taken up by the UvA collections in the depot is to be reduced by twenty per cent in the next three years and the backlog in making archives and other collections accessible will be resolved. This plan should lead to more efficient use of depot space, which will result in improved service provision as well as a cost reduction.
Image: Monique Kooijmans

If library policy were to remain unchanged, the UvA library collection in the Book depot (IWO) in Amsterdam Zuid-Oost would grow by three kilometres in the next ten years, to reach an extent of 87 kilometres. Management of this depot is a significant and annually increasing cost item for the UvA, while the use of the depot collections has been decreasing steadily as a result of digitisation.

The Library has drawn up a programme for reducing the UvA’s use of space. It is expected that a reduction of twenty per cent, in other words 2500m2, will be achieved between 2021 and 2024. At the same time, this will allow depot space to be better utilised.

Collectie Nederland

The reduction applies to material of which there are multiple copies in the depot or which is available at other academic libraries in the Netherlands. The basic premise is that the UvA collection is part of Collectie Nederland (the (academic) Collection of the Netherlands).

In recent years, interlibrary loan (ILL) has become much more accessible with the advent of WorldCat, an online platform where students and academic staff can request material from other libraries in the Netherlands and abroad.

Image: Monique Kooijmans
The depot space will be better utilised. Image: Monique Kooijmans

Depot collections

The collections of the UvA currently include approximately ten kilometres of material that is not accessible. Most of this is books and archives that cannot be requested via Catalogus Plus yet.

In order to resolve this backlog, the Depot Collections subproject’s aim is the overall conversion and making accessible of the material that makes the UvA collections unique.

More information? Ask the programme manager.