To ease crowding on its shelves on Capitol Hill, the Library of Congress plans to open part of a huge storage center at Fort Meade today -- a facility that eventually will hold more than a million books.
The national library's first climate-controlled storage module is an oddly shaped structure that has irked environmentalists and nearby residents. But, officials say, it will provide much-needed relief for the library's main building, where many books sit on the floor because little shelf space remains.
"We're certainly pleased to be moving forward on it," Library of Congress spokeswoman Helen Dalrymple said.
As the nation's repository for all copyrighted materials, the library takes in about 7,000 documents a day. It houses 18.6 million items, according to fiscal year 2001 statistics.
The 8,500-square-foot storage module is one of 13 that the Architect of the Capitol -- the real estate arm of Congress -- has planned for its 100-acre parcel at Fort Meade. It's part of a 50-year project to move part of the library's overflowing collection into high-density, climate-controlled storage, something the library couldn't build at its Capitol Hill site.
Because the overflow is so severe, library officials said, they'll begin transporting 2,500 books and bound periodicals a day to the storage module over the next 2 1/2 years. Until now, the library has been storing its overflow collection at rented warehouses in Suitland and Landover, and at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton.
Library officials expect delivery drivers to make runs between Fort Meade and Capitol Hill twice daily to retrieve books, so that library patrons won't have to wait more than a day for their requests to be filled.
The temperature at the module will remain at 50 degrees with 30 percent humidity year-round -- ideal conditions for storing books and bound periodicals, according to Bruce Arthur, head of the AOC's architecture division. Arthur studied a similar climate-controlled module at Harvard University before construction began at Fort Meade.
Fort Meade spokeswoman Cynthia Lyles-Quinn said the base welcomes the library and will invite its staff to tenant events. Though the base has been a closed post since August last year, Lyles-Quinn said the library's drivers will become registered like all other tenant contractors and won't have difficulty getting on post.
"We don't foresee any problems ... ," she said. "It will be nice to have a new partner."
But the library's arrival has not been without critics.
Several government agencies, including the National Security Agency and the Environmental Protection Agency, are tenants at Fort Meade. But the Architect of the Capitol is not a tenant; it owns the 100-acre parcel on which it is building, because of a law passed in 1993 requiring the Army to give up the land.
When soldiers and nearby residents spotted the storage module along Route 32 in Odenton, many wondered who was constructing the building that some referred to as a "high-tech bombshell." They were surprised to learn that it was not the Army but the AOC, known for beautiful renovations at the U.S. Capitol and the Library of Congress' Jefferson Building.
"It doesn't add anything to the community," said Harry Sinclair Jr., president of the Greater Odenton Improvement Association. "If you're going to put up something that ugly, put it up where no one can see it."
Environmental activists also cried foul. Although Fort Meade is on the EPA's Superfund list of the nation's most hazardous sites, the agency has no jurisdiction over the AOC parcel.
Fort Meade environmental officials said communication with the AOC has improved.
"They were doing things before without letting anyone in the office know," said Robert Stroud, the EPA's remedial project manager. "But they're in touch with us now."