Manuscript boxing: a technique for objective spatial arrangement

Books from historic library collections often require protective boxes which typically increase the required storage space. In some cases, extra storage space is unavailable and therefore good use of existing space is necessary. Deciding on the location of every boxed book on the available shelving is not an easy problem. Calculating the dimensions of the boxes when several hundreds or even thousands of books are considered is again time-consuming. Both of these problems are extremely difficult to solve manually. There are several techniques from the fields of statistics and computer science which can be used to assist with finding a solution. This paper investigates k-means clustering as a way to group books which can fit in a box of a specific size. It also investigates the First Fit Decreasing technique for arranging boxes optimally on shelves. The paper also includes a brief description of the boxes used at the library of the St. Catherine Monastery in Sinai, Egypt, alongside the racking storage system. It describes an application implementing the above techniques for the library's boxed manuscripts and presents some results confirming the usefulness of the application.