Facility & Storage

ReCAP's facility was designed and constructed to provide high-density shelving for library items while using strict inventory control, so that retrieval requests are completed quickly and reliably. The facility environment is optimized for the preservation of library and archival collections. Careful management of temperature and humidity reduces the rate of chemical decay in ReCAP's stacks so that material life expectancy is four to five times greater, compared to normal library stack environments.

Individual items at the ReCAP facility are sorted by size and fit into open-top trays which are placed on an appropriate-sized shelf, in order to store the maximum number of items in the minimum floor area. This close packing provides an additional level of environmental insulation, reduces oxygen exposure to guard against fire, and provides mechanical support to reduce physical strain on the collections.

Items housed at the ReCAP facility are requested through the partners' library catalogs. Requests are processed daily and available to patrons within two business days. Electronic delivery of articles and chapters is available as well, with requested materials sent directly to members of the partner libraries.

The ReCAP facility has the capacity for approximately 19 million items, and has land assigned for future modules. ReCAP's purpose-built infrastructure and carefully-designed operations maintain collections in a highly cost-effective manner that helps our partner libraries realize their preservation objectives and provides access to expansive collections of research materials.

The ReCAP facility was opened in 2000 and has expanded to become the largest Harvard Depository model facility in the world. The present operation includes seven storage modules, a processing center, and offices and occupies 163,847 square feet with build capacity for over 19 million library and archival items. The site has room for three additional storage modules, with a total potential capacity exceeding 40 million items. This section of the website provides further detail about the

• Size and Description of the facility,
• Storage System used to house materials and expedite retrieval,
• Preservation Environment that ensures the safety of collections,
• Energy and Sustainability efforts underway at ReCAP,
• Grounds and environmental stewardship,
• Design Team for each phase of construction,
• And a Gallery of images of the facility and operations.