Arkansas Studies Institute: The Move, Week Three

This week we moved the first batch of our books over to the Arkansas Studies Institute. To do this we used an ingenious system created by CALS own Jennifer Chilcoat. In the system, numbered green slips of paper went into the first book on a shelf and corresponding red slips of paper went into the last book on a shelf. The books were removed from their cozy shelf home, loaded on book carts, and trucked to the new building. On the ASI side of the equation, staff matched the numbers on the green and red slips to the number assigned to the new shelving. All that was left at that point was to reshelf the books and repeat. 500 times.

Next week the rest of our books will make the long journey across the street and the remaining Butler Center staff will settle in to their new office space. Although still empty, the new research room is starting to take shape.




And look! The first batch of boxes from the University of Arkansas at Little Rock arrived as I wrote this post and is waiting to be loaded onto shelves.



Please remember that the Butler Center is still closed and will not reopen until March 23rd.

Contributed by Stephanie Bayless, Manuscripts Department.

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Arkansas Studies Institute: The Move, Week 2

We are in the middle of week two of the move to the ASI. We moved 3000+ boxes on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. The boxes are all snug in their new homes and manuscripts staff is settling in to our new office space.

Most of the boxes made the trip over on book carts. Here are the first few carts loaded up and ready to go.

Processed collections went straight into compact shelving in the new archival storage addition.


Unprocessed collections are stored in the manuscripts department office/processing area where staff are slowly trying to get set up in their new space.



Upstairs, the rest of the ASI anxiously awaits staff. Here is a sneak peak of the area:




Contributed by Stephanie Bayless, Manuscripts Department.

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Arkansas Studies Institute: The Move

The Butler Center has been a whirlwind of activity as we have started moving to the new Arkansas Studies building. This week, 2600+ boxes from the Clinton Gubernatorial Project made the journey across the street and into the new compact storage. Their old shelving soon followed and left a large empty spot in our storage area.

Encyclopedia of Arkansas staff is going to round out this week by moving their supplies today. Starting Monday, the manuscripts department will be moving, so I have spent this week preparing our collections. Thankfully, my wonderful co-workers have jumped in to help me when they had some spare time even though the job isn’t that glamorous. Special thanks go out to Sara and Jamie who spent hours helping me number each and every box with a neon sticky note.

To make the move easier and faster, we are numbering our boxes in order with a sticky note. Instead of having to read the collection number/box number/etc. to determine what goes where, we can simply load the boxes by the number on the sticky. By the time I left yesterday, we had labeled about 2900 boxes (and I'm not done yet!). The end result looks something like this:




Having severely underestimated the number of sticky notes required, Sara and I visited two Office Depot locations and relieved them of their stock of 4x6 super sticky neon post-its. She was gracious enough to let me take her picture as she negotiated our plunder.



One week down! Don’t forget: The Butler Center research room will be open next week, but manuscript collections will not be accessible until we reopen in the Arkansas Studies Institute.

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Arkansas Studies Institute: The Move

It has started!

If you are planning to visit the Butler Center in the next couple of weeks, you will want to pay close attention to this schedule.

Beginning next Monday (Feb. 23rd), the Manuscripts Department will close. No manuscript collections will be available for patron use.

On Monday, March 2rd, the Butler Center research room will close.

We will reopen in our new home at 401 President Clinton Avenue on Monday March 23, 2009. Stay tuned for more details as the situation progresses.

In the meantime, check out the Butler Center website for sneak peeks in the "Countdown to ASI" featured on the main page.

You might have already noticed that the blog has gotten pretty quiet. I previously mentioned that we would start to feature glimpses into the move and that is coming up next week. For now, I (with the rest of the BC staff) am up to my neck in boxes and packing tape. Posts about our collections, including the featured manuscript collection for March/April, will be suspended for now. When we get settled across the street, I’ll jump back in with regular posting and I’ll see about tackling some of the suggestions you emailed me in response to this post.

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