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Cleaning up of doctoral theses frees up more than 600 metres of shelf space

Part of the UvA Depots projects has been completed

18 May 2021

The Library will henceforth apply the same storage policy that applies to current theses to the entire thesis collection. It will store two copies of every thesis – one digital and one printed copy. For the depot, this has meant the disposal of some of the theses, which has freed up more than 600 metres of shelf space. This project is part of the Use of Depot Space project, which should ultimately lead to a twenty per cent reduction in the number of square metres the depots require.
Image: Monique Kooijmans
Staff working in the Book depot. (Image: Monique Kooijmans)

In order to reach this goal, the storage policy for the entire collection was reconsidered.

This means that henceforth the Library will hold two copies of every thesis – one digital and one printed copy. For the Library, this has meant that a part of the theses could be disposed of.

For those of which there is no digital copy yet, an extra printed copy will be retained, so that this can in due course be used in the digitisation process.

Clearing out the thesis collection has freed up 639 metres of shelf space in the Book depot (IWO) in Amsterdam Zuid-Oost.

Use of Depot Space project

The space occupied in the depot by the UvA collections will be reduced by twenty per cent in three years, and we will resolve the backlog in cataloguing archives and newspaper collections. Once the newspaper titles and theses have been cleaned up, the next project will be the disposal of the extra copies of monographs currently present in the depots. In addition, preparations for the deselection of the magazine collection have begun.

Collectie Nederland

The reductions being carried out by the Library apply to material of which multiple copies are available in the depot or in 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).

Questions about this project?

Please contact the Library.