The Northeastern Ohio Cooperative Regional Library Depository is a high-density library storage facility located in Rootstown, Ohio, on the campus of the Northeastern Ohio Universities College of Medicine (NEOUCOM). Planning and construction of the facility resulted from a 1987 recommendation from the Ohio Board of Regents for academic libraries to develop a plan for storage units. These storage units would ease stack overcrowding in the libraries by relocating seldom used material to a centralized location.

The Ohio Board of Regents realized that there would be a tremendous cost savings by constructing one centralized building for storage of material rather than building additions onto five separate universities' libraries.

Ground breaking for the facility took place in April 1993. After nine months of construction, Phase I of the storage facility project was completed. Staff moved into the new building on January 3, 1994. The Northeastern Ohio Cooperative Regional Library Depository was the first of five storage modules located in Ohio to be built.

While materials stored in the Depository have been designated by the libraries as "seldom used," they are available to library patrons. The on-line catalogs located at the Cooperative libraries inform patrons that items are located at the Depository. Patrons may, in most cases, place online requests for these items through their local library or through OhioLINK.  When the requests are received by the Depository, the items are retrieved, packaged and sent to the library designated by the patron for pick-up.  Most of the time items are available for pick-up the following day.

Highlights of the building:

Building Size
Work + Shipping 3,852 sq. ft.
Stack area 10,812 sq. ft.
Total 14,664 sq. ft.

Construction Costs
$2.598 million

Building Exterior
Red brick to match existing college buildings, parking for 11 cars.

Building Interior
3 areas: Work, Stacks, and the Shipping/Receiving areas.

Work Area
The work area is composed of 2 offices, a reading room, a lounge, the processing area, restrooms, and a custodial closet. Special features of the building include a suspended acoustical ceiling, carpet in offices and reading room, tile flooring in other work areas, 7 computer work stations, a glassed observation wall between the reading room and the processing area, and an admittance buzzer at front door.

Stacks
The shelving area has a continuous membrane roof, sodium quartz lights, 10 ranges of shelving (30 ft. high x 186 ft. length), 16 miles of shelf space, and a super-flat concrete floor.  A battery operated "cherry picker" is used to shelve and pull the library materials.

Shipping/Receiving
Materials are received and sent on a covered dock with a leveler and air curtain.