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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
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The Repository Library
• Established in 1989• Staff: 17 employees• Interlending per year:
100,000 documents• Aquisition per year:
100 – 200,000 documents
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The Repository Library
• Collection:• 780,000 monographs• 1,5 million issues
of periodicals• 50,000 microfilms• Audio books• Music CDs
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Why Automatic Storage and Retrieval System?
• In 1996 the NL started to plan a new
storage for The RL, and investigated
the 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
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Why Automatic Storage?
• The ASRS would be based on a
well known tecnhology used
by companies such as Lego,
Husquarna etc. etc.
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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?
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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
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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
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Random storage
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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)
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How does it work?
• Every morning loan orders are
sent from Bibsys to
WMS.• The cranes fetch the boxes which
contain ordered material• The boxes are brought to
the pick up stations in the Retrieval
Centre
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How does it work?
• The operators read the barcode on
the publication, and both WMS and
Bibsys are updated• Some orders require
manual work:
- microfilms
- article copies
- multi-volume publications
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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
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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 as
cataloguing• New tasks:
- books to digitization
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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
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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
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Conclusion
• The ASRS has given us easy access
to our collection and made us able
to carry out all loan orders
within 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
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Plans
• By 2012 todays storage is filled• Now we are planlegging the next
storage• known technology• use existing infrastructure• easy to build
