Since March 2024, an average of 14 Dustbusters have been out and about in the stacks of the Main Library, dusting the collections once again before they are moved to the new depot in Floridsdorf.
The aim was to clean all signatures from 1 to 1,000,000 before the move, and the hard-working Dustbusters succeeded! They spent around 276 working hours over 8 months carefully wiping and vacuuming around 70,000 metres of shelving. That equates to a good 2 million books and 11.5 days of continuous clearing, vacuuming and wiping.
Not all the books in the stacks are on the move. There are various reasons for this: Some volumes are not allowed to be lifted out (e.g. for conservation reasons), some are no longer as popular and others are now more frequently used as e-books, rather than analogue.
The books and shelves are gently dusted with a special vacuum cleaner and a cloth before they are then - and this is very important - returned to their original place in the correct order. The Dustbusters have to work very carefully here to ensure that nothing gets mixed up, as otherwise individual books may no longer be found..
We would like to thank all the Dustbusters for their great work!
© UB Wien
© UB Wien
