Some time on the morning of Thursday March 29, 2012 we accessioned the 750,000th item onto a shelf in Ivy Stacks. This is milestone because that is the number of items we thought we were starting out with. But we still have a lot of materials to go through before we get to the point where we have returned all the stuff we took out. It is really hard to estimate how much more needs to be returned and one lesson I have learned is that past activity does not necessarily predict the future. So, with that said, I think we have about 100,000 more items to accession (that includes a lot of materials from the Law Library). Still plenty of work to be done.
There are a couple of pictures on page 3 of our Flickr account (http://www.flickr.com/photos/ivystacks/page3/) that show the ocean of boxes of books we stored in a facility in Orange, VA. 1040 pallets of boxes, each pallet holding 36 boxes. That's 37,440 boxes of stuff. This Thursday, April 5, 2012, we will be transporting the last of those boxes back up to Charlottesville. I thought I would never see the day. Anyone who ever saw all those boxes thought they would never see this day. Me and a couple of the crew who have been managing the deliveries are going to go to Orange and find a way to celebrate, probably with a couple of chili dogs and soda. This isn't peace on Earth, but it is a step in that direction for me. Life is good!
