Experiences with the Automated Storage and Retrieval System (ASRS)in Mo i Rana

Helén Sakrihei, Head of The Repository Library, The National Library of Norway

2

The Repository Library

• Established in 1989• Staff: 17 employees• Interlending per year:

100,000 documents• Aquisition per year:

100 – 200,000 documents

3

The Repository Library

• Collection:• 780,000 monographs• 1,5 million issues

of periodicals• 50,000 microfilms• Audio books• Music CDs

4

Why Automatic Storage and Retrieval System?• In 1996 the NL started to plan a new

storage for The RL, and investigatedthe possibilities for building an ASRS

• Advantages• Traditional storage would cost more

to build (15 – 20 million NOK)• Operation expenses would be lower• ASRS would require 20-25% of the

base area of a traditional storage

5

Why Automatic Storage?

• The ASRS would be based on a well known tecnhology used by companies such as Lego,Husquarna etc. etc.

6

Why Automatic Storage?

Disadvantages:- The mechanics would make

The ASRS vulnerable- Would it be noisy?- Operating The ASRS

would be monotonous?- Books could disappear

when they didn’t have a permanent place on a shelf?

7

Moving into the ASRS

• In 2000 The Ministry of Culture and Church Affairs accepted our plans for building an ASRS with a maximum cost of 100 million NOK.

• The RL closed temporarily in October 2002.

• Within 15 months we moved most of the collection into The ASRS.

• Reopened June 2003

8

The Automatic Storage and Retrieval System (ASRS)

• 41 500 steel boxes• folders• Three gangways• Three Automatic Miniload

Cranes• 200 boxes in/out per hour• Random storage

9

Random storage

10

Random storage

• No permanent box or folder• No permanent location• Each location has an coordinate• Barcodes• Attached to each other in the

Warehouse Management System (WMS)

11

How does it work?

• Every morning loan orders aresent from Bibsys to WMS.

• The cranes fetch the boxes whichcontain ordered material

• The boxes are brought to the pick up stations in the Retrieval Centre

12

How does it work?

• The operators read the barcode on the publication, and both WMS and Bibsys are updated

• Some orders requiremanual work:

- microfilms- article copies- multi-volume publications

13

Operation stability

• 160,000 items out and 220,000 items in to storage per year

• High operation stability• Automation engineer who

maintains the hardware• Four of our co-workers have been

special trained in ASRS/WMS• Service on Storage once a year

14

How has The ASRS changed the way we work?• The need of manpower to carry out

our loanorders has been reduced to 1/3.

• More capacity to other tasks, such ascataloguing

• New tasks:- books to digitization

15

Collection control

• Coordinated shelf lists from Bibsys and Swisslog• In order to find books in storage that aren’t registrated

in the catalogue, and books in the catalogue that aren’t in storage

16

Problems…

• When errors do occur, we often manage to solve them klarer vi som ourselves

• Depend on a good support agreement

• Hardware problems – the RL• Software problems – Swisslogg• Spare parts

17

Conclusion

• The ASRS has given us easy access to our collection and made us able to carry out all loan orderswithin 24 hours

• From time to time we do have shutdowns, but all in all the operation stability is high

• Books can disappear, but more seldom than from traditional bookshelves

18

Plans

• By 2012 todays storage is filled• Now we are planlegging the next

storage• known technology• use existing infrastructure• easy to build

19

Kiitos…

helen.sakrihei@nb.no