Mansueto by the Numbers
Underground
Photo by Tom Rossiter
Number of bins for storing books and journals: 24,000
Number of shelf racks for storing archival boxes and elephant folios: 1,200
Number of cranes retrieving bins and shelf racks: 5
Height of cranes: 50 feet
Typical book retrieval time: 5 minutes
Number of cubic yards of material removed to make room for the basement: 53,000
Number of panels comprising the slurry wall: 26
Thickness of the slurry wall: 30 inches
Number of tie-backs used to support the wall: 334
Thickness of the basement floor: 2 feet
Depth of the basement floor: 55 feet
Level of the bedrock under Mansueto: 60-75 feet below ground level
Temperature of basement (maintained for preservation purposes): 60ºF
Relative humidity of basement (maintained for preservation purposes): 30%
Above Ground
Photo by Tom Rossiter
Height of the dome at the highest point: 35 feet
Length of Mansueto: 240 feet
Width of Mansueto: 120 feet
Number of glass panels on Mansueto’s dome: 691
Layers of glass in each panel: 3
Percentage of UV rays filtered by all dome glass: 99%
Percentage of solar heat rejected by glass: 73%
Percentage of visible light admitted by glass: 50%
Size of each panel: Approximately 2 x 2 meters
Number of rounded panels of glass in the dome: 0
Number of seats in the Grand Reading Room: 180
Coldest temperature that can be reached by Conservation Laboratory freezer (used to treat books that are wet, moldy or infested with insects): –40ºF
Sound frequency of Conservation Laboratory ultrasonic welder (used to weld sheets of stable polyester film for enclosure and protection of fragile items): 20 kHz
Average time needed to scan a typical book with the Digitization Laboratory’s Zeutschel book scanner: 30 minutes