The University of Melbourne is Australia’s Number One university and world leader in education, teaching, and research excellence. They offer a vast range of coursework and research with a unique and growing collection of rare books, ancient maps, prints and other published materials.
Brief Due to its growing collection the library department at the University of Melbourne was unable to keep pace with its storage needs.
The University’s project management team embarked on an extensive refurbishment program to develop and implement a customised storage solution that would house the priceless collection safely, allow staff to access the collection easily and quickly, whilst ensuring optimal storage conditions for sensitive material.
Project managing all stages, Bowen Storage partnered with the University of Melbourne to design a space-efficient two-tier storage module consisting of 1,300 bays of shelving, with a footprint of approximately 1,400 square metres of floor space.
The shelving system was chosen for its load distribution and ability to maximise all available floor space. A versatile and innovative storage solution, allowing shelf levels to be easily adjusted to accommodate different book sizes even after the installation was completed.
Zinc is the primary component used in the galvanisation process of shelving. This means it is perfectly suited for archive storage, as lead content in other surface finishes such as powder coating would have severely impacted the quality of the library’s archives.
Results Bowen Storage designed, supplied, and installed a space-efficient, intelligent two-tier medium duty storage module for the University of Melbourne.
Working closely with the architect and builder, we delivered an effective storage solution that catered for over 300,000 valuable book titles.
To this date the results are clear – an intelligent, versatile, cost-effective, highly durable, easy-to-use shelving system meeting the immediate and future needs of the University of Melbourne.