About the Client
The University of Sheffield is a research university based in Sheffield, Yorkshire, England. It’s history traces back to the foundation of Sheffield Medical School in 1828, Firth College in 1879 and Sheffield Technical School in 1884. The University College of Sheffield was subsequently formed by the combination these three institutions in 1897. It was granted a royal charter as the University of Sheffield in 1905 by King Edward VII.
The University boasts Six Nobel laureates and has string of famous alumni including heads of state, booker prize winners, Olympic gold medalists and even astronauts!
The Requirements
During 2017 the University team was looking to renovate it’s Zooarchaeology, Archeobotany and Human Osteology labs to better serve its students. A large part of this was the better organisation of its samples, equipment and archives. These needed to be stored securely and in the best environmental conditions, whilst also allowing students and faculty staff quick access when required.
Having previously worked with Rackline within its Portobello Stores, the university estates team knew that they could trust us to examine the extensive collection, and spaces, then provide a series of effective systems to keep their items safe and accessible.
The Solution – Combined Static and Roller Racking Systems
Following discussions with the estates team, and departmental heads, it became clear that there was a huge cross section of storage required, across multiple areas of their lab.
Specimens and previous research:
With a history of hundreds of years of research, the department needed to house many thousands of important specimens. These needed to be both protected and effectively catalogued. While some specimens would be fine exposed on shelves, others would need to be stored in boxes, drawers and even protected from detrimental environmental conditions.
It was important that archive research and storage boxes, trays and reference materials (ring binders, files, books and so on) were retained, were protected and catalogued.
Equipment:
The team also needed space to hold its numerous pieces of expensive and delicate equipment including: microscopes, lighting and magnifying equipment. These items needed to be stored safely, whilst retaining accessibility for students and the faculty teams.
Storage Provision for all their needs.
Rackline visited the space and built a set of designs based around its extremely flexible and strong Prospan shelving solution, fitted onto Monotrak mobile bases.
Units were designed for each lab area and the items which they needed to store.
These included:
- Specially adapted prospan shelving, containing coloured sample drawers.
- Shelves adapted to safely house Microscopes.
- Open shelving for less delicate samples.
- Box storage shelving to hold archive boxes.
- Strong, deep shelving units for document storage, including the storage of box files and ring binders.
All these units were fitted to mobile bases to allow them to be pushed together, saving valuable space within the cramped laboratories.
The Result
The University’s Zooarchaeology, Archeobotany and Human Osteology labs now have vastly improved storage capacity. The new mobile solutions provide masses of space for their existing and future storage needs, while taking up far less space than traditional rows of static shelving.
With a huge selection of tailored shelving options, each inventory category is kept safely within their ideal conditions. These retain easy access for the students and teams.
Find Out More
If you would like to find out more about our solutions for Education, then see our dedicated page here. To see further case studies see here. If you are currently looking for solutions and would like to talk to us, call us on: 01782 770144 or fill in the details below, and one of our team will be in touch.