Our summer project to reorganise the ground floor reference section is nearly complete. This morning, all volumes of the Congressional Record from 1918 to 1982 (the latest we have) have been brought up from the stacks and are now available on the open shelves along the left-hand wall of the ground floor (where the old Bibliographies section was). This should make them easier to access and browse (and save us time and effort fetching them up from the stack!). The indexes to the entire run, including the volumes still in the stack, are also on the ground floor, interfiled where appropriate.

The centre shelving units on the ground floor now house the new, slimmed-down reference section. We have moved a lot of out-of-date or more specialised material upstairs, to be shelved alongside other books on the same subjects. Certain large runs of titles have gone down to the stack where online versions exist – this includes the Monthly Catalog post-1976, America: History and Life, the Declassified Documents Reference System, and the bibliographies to the Evans collection. These are of course still accessible via stack request.

Two things remain to do before the project is over. Guides to microfilm collections held by the library are currently on a trolley awaiting shelving in a dedicated space (please ask staff if you need one and can’t find it!), and the microcards of the Evans collection will also be moved down into the stack in due course.

A couple of months ago I posted on the blog about our proposed reorganisation of the ground floor reference section over the summer, with a view to making post-1920 volumes of the Congressional Record (currently in the stack) available on the open shelves. We will be starting to move books from the reference and bibliographies sections upstairs or down to the stack in the next couple of weeks, so this is your last chance to let us know if you have any objections to any of the proposed moves. As a reminder:

• Green dots indicate that a book will be moved upstairs to the main collection
• Yellow dots indicate that a book will be moved to the stack
• Pink dots indicate a book that will be kept on the ground floor as part of a research enquiry collection
• No dot means the book will stay as part of the new reference collection.
• Where all the volumes in a set or on that shelf will be moved together, only the first volume in the set/shelf has been dotted.

If you think that a book should remain in the reference section and not be moved, please mark a cross on the spine dot and we will take this into consideration. We have erred on the side of dotting more books rather than fewer, so not everything will necessarily end up moving.

Thanks for your help!

We are embarking on a project to rearrange the ground floor of the library over the next few months, and need your help to finalise what will move where.

Currently the ground floor has reference books in the centre shelves, and bibliographies along the left-hand wall. Once our reorganisation is complete, the centre shelves will contain a smaller and more focused reference section, and the left-hand wall will be used to house post-1920 volumes of the Congressional Record, which are currently in the stack. Guides to microfilm collections held in the library will be shelved separately by the microform cabinets.

The books in the reference and bibliographies sections have been marked with coloured dots on the spines, according to where we suggest they might go in order to make space for the Congressional Record. Please take a look at the collections, and if you disagree with our assessment, mark the dot with a cross. We will then consider those titles more carefully. Please note that we have erred on the side of dotting more books rather than fewer, so not everything dotted will necessarily move!

Dotting guide:

• Green dots indicate that a book will be moved upstairs to the main collection
• Yellow dots indicate that a book will be moved to the stack
• Pink dots indicate a book that will be kept on the ground floor as part of a research enquiry collection
• No dot means the book will stay as part of the new reference collection.
• Where all the volumes in a set or on that shelf will be moved together, only the first volume in the set/shelf has been dotted.

If you have any questions, comments or feedback, please get in touch via any of the usual methods!