Eastern Michigan University in Ypsilanti is a comprehensive university which serves approximately 25,000 students and offers more than 200 undergraduate and graduate programs. In 1993 the Governor granted funding for a much-needed new library building. Early in the planning the Library’s Dean anticipated funding difficulties for additions, and wanted to avoid crowded conditions and off-site storage in the future. He became interested in the idea of an automated storage and retrieval system (AS/RS) after reading the 1987 article “Industrial Storage Technology Applied to Library Requirements” by John Kountz. A visit to California State University at Northridge to see the first university library AS/RS convinced him to pursue the idea. The result is the high-tech Bruce T. Halle Library, twice the previous library’s size. It opened in 1998 housing Learning Resources and Technologies (the Library and Academic Computing). It is the second university library in the U.S. to have an automated storage/retrieval system, which EMU calls the ARC (Automated Retrieval Collection). The Halle Library’s $1.6M mini-load system built by H.K. Systems is housed in a 24,000 square foot climate-controlled room, three stories high. The top story is level with the Library’s main floor. The room contains huge racks holding about 7,500 metal bins measuring 2'x4', in heights of 10", 12", and 15". Each bin holds 100–150 books, housing a total of 800,000 books. The racks are separated by three aisles containing rails which allow robotic cranes to carry the bins between storage racks and computer stations (pick stations) in a room behind the circulation desk. There, student workers “pick” from bins the items which are identified by the computer. Patrons retrieve their requested items at the circulation desk within five minutes of submitting their request through the online catalog.

In 1997 Endeavor wrote a “reconciliation program” which changed the permanent holdings locations of stored items to “ARC.” One of the library “study teams” recommended how many non-reference items should be stored by juxtaposing annual net growth statistics for periodicals, monographs and government documents, against current holdings, and linear shelving in the new facility. Periodicals published before 1985 were considered for storage as were monographs published before 1990 and not circulated since 1994. Librarians weeded 43,500 items. All library personnel and volunteers marked books with the last two digits of the barcode and loaded bins. The result is that 180,000 volumes are in the stack Browsing Collection; 330,000 journals and books are in the ARC.

First year problems have been experienced due to the instability of the library network, use of Voyager’s hold module as the interface between the online catalog and the ARC, inconsistencies in marking the collection for storage, and the storage of some inappropriate materials such as kits, K-12 textbooks, and videos. These problems are being resolved. Eastern Michigan University Library staff and clientele, especially the students, have been receptive to having the collection divided between storage and open shelves. Most people appreciate the browsing collection of current and recently-circulated books.