Off-Site Library Book Storage Facility

The University of Southampton is seeking a managed library book store (LS) for items relocated from the University Library. We expect a fully secure, environmentally controlled storage facility which conforms to BS 4971.2, or equivalent. The temperature is maintained at 17.5°C ± 1°C and Relative Humidity at 52% ± 5%. Materials should be stored in archival standard trays according to their size and kept in sequence. The Hartley Library, located at the Highfield campus in Southampton, contains approximately 1,000,000 items, mainly printed books and journals. We are planning a collections assessment in 2023-24, which will see some items retained at the Hartley Library, other items relegated to a LS from July 2023 onwards and the remaining items deaccessioned (withdrawn from the collection). This work will be undertaken by a specialist team within the Library and supervised by the Collections Development Team at the University Library. It will precede a major refurbishment of the Hartley Library in 2024-25. There will be approximately 600,000 printed books retained at the Hartley Library, 200,000 printed books relegated to a LS and 200,000 printed books deaccessioned. We anticipate that items relegated to the LS will be housed appropriately for storage efficiency and easy retrieval. Items held in the LS will be subject to annual retention-in-store reviews, and a small number recalled for deaccessioning year-on-year. Conversely, we anticipate that a similar small number of items will be relegated to the LS following retention-on-site (at the Hartley Library) annual reviews. We expect that between 1-2% of items relegated to the LS may be subject to a recall, in response to a user request. Items should be placed in suitable shipping packaging for collection by a University of Southampton approved courier (most urgent) or shipped by Royal Mail tracked postage (non-urgent). Items shipped from the University of Southampton Library will be categorised as 'standard' unless it is indicated as 'high value'. Stock will be categorised as high value in terms of scarcity and/or financial value. All other potential risks, such as, fire, vermin, flooding, must be monitored and controls should be in place to mitigate these risks. There must be a clear line of communication with the University for all matters including incident reporting.