Industrial Storage Technology Applied to Library Requirements

Automated material‐handling techniques have been successfully applied in industry for over a decade. The techniques and systems developed to automate warehouse operations directly apply to libraries. The problem of storing a growing mass of little used but “valuable” materials can be resolved by new material handling strategies, which will also generate improved library services. The characteristics of a miniload automated storage and retrieval system are described, and formulas are presented for calculating the size of system needed by a library. Also included are “rule‐of‐thumb” prices for calculating the approximate costs of a system of a specific size.