Testing the Effects of an Activated Fire Suppression System in High-Density Storage Environment and Planned Prioritization for Optimal Material Removal Presented by: Jennifer Hain Teper, Conservation Librarian Head, Preservation and Conservation Units University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Hosted by ALCTS The Association for Library Collections and Technical Services

Illinois’ Oak Street Library Facility An overview of our facility… Opened in million volumes in Vault I and 1.1 million volumes in Vault II (65% capacity) Vault III currently under construction –Mobile high bay shelving –Anticipated to hold 2.48 million volumes when fully equipped

Design of a Disaster Recovery Protocol – ongoing since 2008 Required unique areas of expertise… What should we expect? What types of events should we plan for? In the case of an event, how do we move up to several million books quickly and efficiently? Can we identify where special collections materials are within the ranges?

The University Library collaborated with Industrial and Enterprise Systems Engineering (IESE) Program for assistance Gather statistical data to determine disaster probabilities and economic losses Recommend facility improvements to aid recovery plan and reduce risk Create a disaster recovery plan — Layout — Retrieval — Physical recovery

Fire Suppression Study Overview Tested water movement first with modeling software Utilized actual sprinkler head in ‘worst case scenario’ position Tested on actual shelving used in HDS facility 5’x3’x3’ Utilized realistic positioning of shelf heights Ran for realistic 30 minutes of “extinguishing” sprinkler Tracked tray and book weights both before and after the testing

NIST Fire Dynamic Simulator Replicates sprinkler system and shelves What areas are most affected? Cascading effects Sprinkler/Fire Modeling

Test I to track absorption of water, expansion of materials, and damage to bound items in typical HD storage trays and wrapped newspapers Test II to track absorption same in typical archival boxes and flat files Live Sprinkler Head Activation Tests

Set-up of the racks Sprinkler Test I– Front and side views

The test ran for 30mins

Sprinkler Test I Statistics Average Dimensional Expansion for a Book: 17% Average Overall Weight Increase for a Book –With enclosure: 40% –Without enclosure: 85% Distribution of Damage –Front trays held an average of 16% more water than back trays

Newspapers As the cascade develops on the array, trays begin to experience reduced water gain Trays that lost books during the test have been excluded from the average.

Examples of resulting damage Sprinkler Test I

Examples of Resulting Damage Sprinkler Test I

Set-up of the racks Sprinkler Test II– Front and side views

The test again ran for 30mins

Sprinkler Test II Statistics Average Overall Weight Increase : 45% –test I results = 40% increase with enclosure –85% increase without enclosure Measured swell in trayed items similar to Test I Flat File data discarded due to leak in piping near elbow

Examples of Resulting Damage Sprinkler Test II

Prioritized Extraction Created modified greedy algorithm for Vault I to locate dispersed special collections materials for most rapid retrieval from identified areas of highest concentrations

Prioritized Extraction Recommended future placement of special collections materials to reduce risk of damage and allow for manual retrieval (started in Vault II) Recommended use of similar tray used for general collections for both wet strength and reduced ease of identification (ideally identified by colored label saver)

Future Implications Vault III to include mobile high-bay shelving Will require considerable changes to recovery plan Prioritization Extraction

Thanks! Illinois Fire Services Institute Staff: Richard Jaehne, Brian Brauer and Gavin Horn IESE Students: Ian Bradley, Tim Kennedy, and Chris Manna Cecil Bilbo: Director of the Academy of Fire Sprinkler Technology University of Illinois Library Preservation, Conservation, Facilities and Administration Offices