With golden shovels in hand, University Provost and Vice-President, Academic David Farrar along with UBC Library representatives commemorated the ground breaking for the new Library Preservation and Archives (PARC) storage facility earlier this spring.
The building is being developed on UBC Vancouver’s South Campus; upon completion, low-circulation items from the Library’s collections will be relocated to Library PARC, freeing up physical space at branches for new, innovative uses, including student and research services, multimedia labs, scholarly exchanges, and study areas.
“We’re excited about the Library PARC project,” says Rue Ramirez, Library PARC’s Project Manager. “It will be key in terms of helping us house our ever-growing collections and providing innovative spaces worthy of a 21st-century research library.” Library PARC will provide more than 2,200 square metres of high-density collection storage, capable of holding about 1.6 million volumes. The facility will also house a campus-wide records management service, a small digitization area, a decontamination freezer, and a public reading room.
Another important benefit is preservation. Library PARC’s carefully controlled environment will extend the life of collections up to seven times, ensuring their availability to generations of students, scholars and lifelong learners.
Library PARC is estimated to cost about $10.5 million, shared between the Library and UBC. Construction is scheduled for completion in spring 2015, in time for the Library’s 100th anniversary celebrations. For information on supporting Library PARC, please contact Library Development at library.development@ubc.ca.
For more information on Library PARC, please contact Rue Ramirez, Associate University Librarian, rue.ramirez@ubc.ca.
This story originally appeared in the 2014 summer issue of the Friends newsletter.