Shelving+Suppliers

**Shelving Suppliers**
//**Observations from Phil McBrayer, ICS (February 2008)**//

Both AMI and Webber make good products and you can’t really go wrong with either one. Both offer good customer service. Both have been delivered and setup in a timely manner. Overall I am comfortable recommending either Both are very difficult to disassemble and move. AMI is the better shelf if you need to support heavy loads, are concerned about stability or are placing shelves in an area that is difficult to cross brace. I think they also have a slightly better overall design but that is a very subjective statement. They are used in most of the university libraries in Hong Kong. Having a unit with 100 KG per shelf weight bearing ability is sometimes important and I really like not needing to worry about overloading the shelves. The AMI shelves are put together with 10mm hex-bolts and lock-washers which means’ that the units remain tight and secure. They don’t wiggle, they don’t shake and they don’t move even if they are not cross-braced; they also have pre-drilled and threaded holes for cross braces on the top. Being one of those guys that is so concerned about safety that I wear both a belt and suspenders the stability of the AMI shelves is a huge deal. While I really like these shelves there are some things I don't like about them but the only two that are real issues is that the AMI shelves are sold without back plates so that sometimes you push a book out on the other side when shelving, they are also not able to be leveled which means' that you have to have a level floor. A last area that AMI wins hands down is that they offer shelves in a variety of footprints. You can get a wider shelf unit that is designed for larger books that has not only a wider shelf but a wider base which makes the unit more stable. A last thing that might or might not be useful to people is that Albert Au of AMI speaks very good English. Webber is the better shelf system in that they offer more features for less price. Webber shelves are put together with screws and the company did not use lock-washers. The shelves are also not pre-drilled for cross bracing. The Webber shelves in our Elementary library are quite shaky even though we've only used them for a few months and we plan to replace the screws with bolts and lock-washers as soon as possible and to put diagonal cross braces on them. However, the Webber shelves offer a lot value in other areas that cost extra in the AMI shelves. The Webber shelves have a back plate on the shelves that keep books from being pushed to far through. They include integrated spring loaded book-ends into the shelves, have adjustable feet to level the unit and the fascia boards on the ends are, I think slightly better. They also cost less than the AMI shelves. A feature of the Webber shelves that I don’t like is the sloping bottom shelf. This looks like a good idea in that it makes the books on the bottom shelf easier to see. The problem is that that it also makes the distance to the bottom the shelf above very narrow and many books won’t fit. This was such a problem that we ended up buying additional shelves to replace the sloping shelves. But if you purchase the Webber shelving it is a good idea to ask Jack Chan the rep if they could replace the screws with bolts and include a lock washer. While the 80 KG weight limit per shelf on the Webber shelves is less than the AMI 100 KG limit it is still more than adequate in most cases.