Library services solution brief

Your challenge

Libraries and archives are transforming to provide innovative new services to meet increased demand and changing access requirements. These improvements put pressure on collections managers and administrators, who must manage physical and digital collections alongside public spaces. Shrinking physical storage and increased digital expectations impact how to manage, protect, and provide access to collections and content.

Transformations are disruptive to you and your community. Whether it's collection shifts to digitisation or setting up offsite storage, these projects involve a lot of moving parts that can put collections at risk.

You may have asked yourself questions like:

• What are other libraries and archives doing?
• How do I get started, and what are my options?
• Where can I get information on best practices?
• How do I tailor these options to the unique needs and preservation requirements of my collections?
• What are the best strategies for managing this process with my key stakeholders?

When embarking on a new project, what if you could:

• Know that you are using proven best practices?
• Reduce the stress of planning and executing your project?
• Continue to provide service to your community?
• Ensure that your collections will be protected?
• Demonstrate to stakeholders that resources will remain safe and accessible?
• Trust your vendor to respond to changing project conditions with expert solutions?

Iron Mountain library services

Planning and consulting

Whether you are planning long-term preservation goals or facing an unanticipated project, Iron Mountain can help. Having access to a trusted group of partners — librarians, archivists, and logistics experts — lets you know that you have the best team to anticipate the unexpected. Don't know how to get started? Our team will provide a comprehensive plan to design workflows and set expectations, helping you manage the project to completion.

Collection relocation

Relocating your collections is a daunting process, but providing the right level of protection will ensure they are accessible to future patrons. Whether you are executing a temporary move or relocating collections into long-term storage, Iron Mountain's Library Services team will develop your project with workflows specific to the needs of your organisation and collections. With the right tools and supplies, your collections are cared for by expertly trained staff and tracked through Iron Mountain's secure chain-of-custody.

Collection storage

Offsite collections management has become a standard practice for libraries and archives facing high demand for space. Although most organisations would prefer to maintain their own facilities, it is often more practical to collaborate with a vendor in order to meet the necessary security, environmental controls, scalability, and access requirements with an outsourced solution.

Special collections and archives

Projects involving special collections and archives can introduce risk. Custom workflows and training are needed to ensure that collections have the appropriate stabilisation, care and handling, inventory control, and chain-of-custody. Iron Mountain has developed new methods and tools for handling fragile library and archival materials. Understanding the critical importance of preserving and protecting collections, in-depth knowledge of classification methods, and appropriate supplies and equipment are hallmarks of our experience.

Staffing

Whether onsite or remote, executing large projects at scale with expert staff can reduce costs and accelerate delivery. Iron Mountain Library Services can provide you with the staffing solution you need to ensure the accurate, timely, and successful delivery of your projects.

Inventory and tracking

Updating inventories and databases is critical work that can often be combined with other projects, such as digitisation or relocation. Our legendary asset tracking capabilities provide digital and physical support when you are verifying holdings, correcting classification discrepancies, barcoding, RFID tagging, or updating cataloging records.

Archival digitisation

Iron Mountain provides a full suite of digital imaging services for cultural heritage organisations and special collections. Our experience in multi-format digitisation workflows, combined with extensive preservation knowledge, provides comprehensive reformatting capabilities for valuable collections. With industry-leading digitisation centres in multiple cities across North America, our highly trained staff provides services in preservation and imaging wherever you are based.

We have extensive experience in digitising special collections, including manuscripts, documents, and bound volumes; oversized items; newspapers; prints and photographs; transparencies and negatives; paintings and other two-dimensional art; and three-dimensional objects. Each project is scoped and configured to your requirements, including options for the preparation of materials for digitisation, metadata capture, quality control, asset hosting, and meeting guidelines such as FADGI.

Media digitisation

A media preservation program is critical to ensuring access to your at-risk audiovisual assets. Inherent deterioration and a multitude of formats and technologies limit access to these collections. Digital facsimiles of analog formats create usable resources while preserving unique content. Iron Mountain can provide digitisation solutions for nearly all audiovisual media formats.

What Iron Mountain provides

• Expert librarians and archivists who understand your collections and the needs of your organisation
• Proprietary tools and workflows specifically designed for rare books, archives, and special collections
• A project staff who have extensive training in the care and handling of your collections
• A global footprint with a local presence to best serve your needs no matter your location
• Scalable archival digitisation of all print and media formats with options for structured metadata and machine learning discovery
• Complete solutions with a single business vendor who can scale to ensure your project is executed safely and on schedule

Conclusion

Our team of passionate and experienced librarians and archivists has been in your shoes and understands the challenges associated with your project. That's why when it comes to managing your collection —whether physical or digital, moving within the same building or storing offsite— you know you can count on Iron Mountain Library Services. This dedicated team, with the support of Iron Mountain's 70 years of global logistics and chain-of-custody expertise, is committed to ensuring your project meets your deadline and that it stays protected.