Are things disappearing from the Proctor Library?

Are we aware that things are disappearing from the Library? Those of you who frequent the Library will notice that some very familiar items have been disappearing this semester. These include paintings from the gallery space on the first floor, microfilm reels and microfilm equipment from the Research Room, and even books from the collections. Fortunately for us all the removals of these items have been planned.

Gallery wall minus Flagler Era paintings

For example, this past week eight Flagler era paintings were removed from the gallery area on the first floor of the Library in order to provide the opportunity for the College to enhance the security environment for these historic treasures. Hopefully the paintings will either be returned soon in a much more secure mode, or else we may substitute a similar collection of quality art pieces to be exhibited in the gallery space.

Our removal of microfilm reels and microfilm equipment has been much slower. Last spring we determined that we needed some of the space then occupied by the microfilm to create a quiet study area in the Research Room. At the same time there was also a need to expand the adjacent room which houses technology equipment, so plans were initiated to convert the remaining freed up floor space to that purpose. We were able to make both of these spaces available because students have substantially reduced their use of microfilm as a result of the more efficient access to journal page images provided today via subscriptions to the electronic databases-- particularly JSTOR, Proquest, Ebscohost, and Wilson Omnifile. We were able to reduce our microfilm holdings from 17 cabinets down to only 3 cabinets, and need only 2 reader printers (of the original 6) to access the remaining microfilm. As a result, we ended up with approximately 6,000 reels (75 storage boxes) of microfilm, 14 microfilm cabinets, and 4 reader printers to be removed.

Surplus reader printers & cabinets

Finding “good homes” for the microfilm and its associated equipment has been interesting. Florida’s Bureau of Braille and Talking Books Library Services was the first to pick up 6 of our microfilm cabinets to store the master cassette recordings of their talking books. Our local St. Augustine Foundation, accepted one of our reader-printers, and now is finally able to print copies of their valuable historic microfilm at their own location. The remaining 3 reader-printers and one cabinet will soon be provided to the St. Augustine Historical Society Research Library, and the Florida State Library in Tallahassee will be the recipient of the final 7 cabinets.

75 boxes of surplus reels of microfilm

Our 6,000 reels of microfilm are also disappearing, but a bit slower. Seven years worth of the New York Times and twenty-five years of the William & Mary Quarterly will help the Volusia County Public Library fill in some gaps in their coverage. Unfortunately we did have a setback recently. We had geared up to provide 31 years of the New York Times, and our holdings of 14 separate political and international affairs journals to the University of Kurdistan Hawler Library in Erbil, Iraq via a very special cooperative effort involving the Southeast Florida Library and Information Network (SEFLIN), Florida Atlantic University (FAU) Library, and the U.S. Army Civil Affairs in Iraq. However, after an initial shipment of five boxes to SEFLIN, we had to suspend subsequent shipments because the U.S. Army Civil Affairs unit has left the Erbil area. We maintain hope that a new delivery channel can soon be established, and that we will be able to continue to help the cooperative effort of SEFLIN and FAU to enhance the English language holdings in that Iraq library.

University of Kurdistan Hawler Library

Finally, as we continue to review sections of our books collection for both currency and relevancy, we identify books that we judge to no longer belong or be needed in our collection and we “weed” them out. These weeded books are disposed of in three different directions. Damaged books and those including information which is out of date are permanently disposed of. Books that still have a market value and have the potential to earn some funds that can be used to purchase new books for the Library are being set aside and will soon be shipped to a used book broker. All remaining books are moved to book carts that are periodically moved out to the lobby of the Library and made available as “give away" books for all members of the Flagler community.

Carts of "give away" books

So things really are disappearing from the Proctor Library. But at least for the items described above the removal is carefully planned and controlled.