Moravia facility closed

Last week, Johns Hopkins University pulled all employees and suspended all exchanges of library materials out of the University Libraries' Moravia Park shelving facility after investigators discovered potentially serious structural problems in the building.

A construction project planning to expand the East Baltimore storage building was underway when a structural problem was discovered in one of the bays, the separated modular building units that house the library materials.

"It was suggested that we take a look at the roof," said Interim Dean of University Libraries Nancy Roderer. "What we learned was that the roof has some structural problems and that there was some white powder on the tops of things. We investigated the white powder first and found out that it was not hazardous in any way to anybody. And we are working on the question of the roof itself."

Roderer could not yet determine the potential damage posed to any of the books, or whether the roof might collapse, but said that "we don't believe that's very likely to happen."

"We have an engineering study going on to find out these answers," she said. Steve Campbell, Director of Facilities Planning, said that portions of the building's roof deck "were degraded because of water penetration through the roof membrane."

Once discovered, the approximately five or six employees who regularly work at the facility were pulled out of work at the building for safety reasons. The closing of Moravia Park also resulted in slower transaction times for many requests for library materials at Homewood. Requests by library patrons for books and other materials normally kept in the Moravia Park facility were transferred to other libraries through Interlibrary Loans.

"We're asking people to make their usual requests," said Roderer. "Those get transferred over to Interlibrary Loan. If it's a request for a general article we obtain it through Interlibrary Loan and generally by fax and electronically and it gets here pretty fast. If it's for a book it can go through Interlibrary Loan but it's likely to take longer to get from some institution than from here."

Campbell noted that "there are a number of options" University administrators could now take in order to resume library activity at Moravia Park but said "I'm not releasing them."

Roderer said that shoring up the roof might be a temporary solution. Morris Ritchie and Associates, the engineering firm hired by the university to investigate the problem, made a preliminary report on Nov. 8 and a formal report on Nov. 12.

The building was first leased by the University in July 1994 and work was done on the roof shortly after. The first of the building's two bays was renovated in 1995. Renovation on the second bay occurred this year and led to the discovery of the structural corrosion. Only about three percent of the more than a million items at Moravia Park actually circulate each year.

However, this still leads to about 55 requests for materials at Moravia Park every day. In order to fit so many materials into the storage facility, books are organized by size, fit tightly into plates and shelves 18 to 20 feet high, accessible only by forklift.

Roderer suggested that it would take "certainly more than two weeks and closer to four or six weeks" before activities could resume at the facility. "We need to take all the precautions necessary until we are able to find out what the risk is to the books and the people," she said.