The Library of Congress recently added some additional info about the storage facility to a page found in the “Managing the Collections” portion of the site.
Direct to Fort Meade Update
From the Page:
In 1994, a 100-acre site located in the U.S. Army Base at Fort Meade, MD was transferred to the U.S. Congress to provide additional storage capacity for the Library of Congress and other legislative bodies. The current master plan includes the land to construct up to 13 Phased Storage Modules for collections, if this number is needed.
In subsequent years Congress provided construction funds in the Architect of the Capitol budget for Module 1, completed in 2002, for Module 2, completed in 2005 and Modules 3 and 4 and four cold storage rooms, completed in 2009. A full scale three year transfer program of the special format collections to Modules 3 and 4 and the four cold storage rooms began in Spring 2010 and was completed in September 2012. Module 5 has been fully funded. Design is currently being finalized, and occupancy is scheduled for September 2017.
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The design of the storage modules is based on the Harvard model for storage of collections. This high-density model provides extremely efficient storage space by arranging materials by size rather than subject matter on 30-foot high shelving units. The high-density storage configuration allows for 125,000 cubic ft of materials to be placed within a footprint of 12,000 sq ft.
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All Ft. Meade storage modules feature optimum environmental conditions for paper-based collections. The HVAC system provides a stable temperature of 50ºF/10ºC (plus or minus 2.5ºF) and a constant relative humidity level of 30% (plus or minus 5%) year round. Temperature and humidity sensors are located at 3 different heights above the floor.
Read the Complete Page for More Info
See Also: “Library of Congress Overflow Stored at Ft. Meade Warehouse” (via Soundoff; 2008)
See Also: Storage Behemoth Rises at Fort Meade (July/August 2005)
See Also: Library of Congress High Density Storage Facility, Ft. Meade, Maryland (November 2002)
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