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How mobile shelving can help fix the arts funding crisis
14th July 2025
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Funding for the arts and public institutions such as libraries, museums, and galleries has been under increasing pressure in recent years. Budgets continue to be under threat despite a change of government, while operational costs like energy bills continue to rise. Alongside a desperate need to modernise, this leaves many institutions struggling to maintain access to their collections while also ensuring financial sustainability.
While investment may be a tough pill to swallow, deploying it in the right areas can reduce long term costs. An underappreciated improvement could be mobile shelving—reducing storage costs, putting more items on display, and improving both security and accessibility for visitors, employees, and volunteers alike.
The arts funding crisis
Arts institutions typically rely on a combination of public funding, grants, ticket sales, and private donations. In recent years, however, it’s the first part of that equation that’s been an issue. Arts and culture have been among the hardest hit areas in public sector funding cuts, with libraries facing closures and reduced hours due to a lack of resources, and some museums struggling to maintain their collections and exhibitions.
At the same time, operational costs—including storage, staffing, and facility maintenance—continue to rise alongside the cost of living. Many institutions have already been forced to make tough choices between preserving collections and providing public access, putting more items into storage, and scaling down plans for exhibitions and events. It’s here that an unlikely solution could provide some relief. By deploying smarter storage solutions like mobile shelving, it may be possible to better maintain collections in both storage and on display—while also freeing up resources for other essential functions.
How mobile shelving saves money
Traditional static shelving requires fixed aisles between each row of shelves, both wasting floor space and increasing the travel time to find a specific item, whether that’s a book, an artefact, or a piece of artwork. Mobile shelving, on the other hand, eliminates unnecessary aisles by allowing shelves to move along floor-mounted rails. Users can open an aisle only when they need it, drastically reducing the amount of floor space required for storage.
A major benefit of mobile shelving in these kinds of institutions is its flexibility. Typically, warehouse storage would make use of pallet racking, and this is true for museums and other institutions in some cases. But the large number of small, delicate, and awkwardly-shaped items mean that this kind of storage often isn’t suitable. Mobile shelving fits the bill by offering a range of inserts for different item sizes, as well as smooth, low-friction movement to prevent items from being jostled.
By reducing the space required for storage, institutions can increase the number of items in their collections, either front or back-of-house. A library or museum that optimises its storage with mobile shelving can reduce the need to rent expensive external storage, or allocate more of their existing space to activities that will generate much-needed revenue, like events or exhibitions. Believe it or not, mobile shelving can also improve energy efficiency by reducing the footprint of climate-controlled storage areas—lowering heating, cooling, and lighting costs.
For institutions that are struggling with overcrowded collections, as many museums are, mobile shelving offers a cost-effective solution. Instead of constructing a new storage facility or extending an existing one, organisations can use mobile shelving to maximise the space they already have, delaying or even eliminating the need for new construction.
Mobile shelving and the arts
Different types of public institutions have unique storage challenges. What mobile shelving provides is a versatile solution across multiple settings—storing all kinds of items for public and private use, and preserving artefacts for generations to come.
Libraries
Libraries often struggle with limited space, with collections growing over time, and books being shuttled around counties as storage and visitors require. Mobile shelving allows libraries to store more books within the same footprint, preventing the need to discard older or less frequently used titles. This means libraries can continue to expand their collections while still operating within the same building—or scale down if the overheads of old library buildings are getting too high.
There’s also a benefit to accessibility. Modern mobile shelving systems come with easy-to-use mechanisms, with a hand crank providing easy operation. They can also be fitted with electronic controls, making it simple for staff and visitors to move shelves apart to access materials. Mobile shelving units can also be locked together when not in use, providing an extra layer of security for public-facing areas. This can be particularly beneficial for archives and special collections, where controlled access is necessary to protect fragile or historically significant documents.
Museums
Museums often have vast collections, as much as 90% of which may remain in storage due to space limitations. Mobile shelving can help museums make better use of their existing storage areas, allowing them to preserve more artifacts without needing to expand their facilities. This can also enable museums to rotate exhibits more frequently, making more of their collections accessible to the public, rather than keeping items permanently stored away.
Preservation is another key concern for museums. Many artifacts are delicate, and require specific environmental conditions to prevent degradation. Crucially for both museums and galleries—and handily for libraries—mobile shelving can also be locked together to protect items from dust, damage, sunlight, and humidity, as well as the potential for theft. This allows for simpler climate control of items than can be achieved with traditional shelving, where an entire room needs to be protected, rather than a unit.
Galleries
Art galleries have very particular storage requirements, needing secure, vertical racks that provide safe and efficient storage for artworks, particularly those not currently on display. A form of mobile shelving known as picture racking offers a way to store paintings and other artwork with many of the same benefits as other types of mobile shelving. Racks can be either floor or ceiling mounted to suit different access requirements and room dynamics, and provide an efficient option for storage or display.
These systems can also be locked together, with only the exterior rack being immediately accessible, reducing the potential for theft or accidental damage. It’s also a great way for curators to more easily access stored pieces for exhibitions, restoration, or transport, reducing the time and effort required to manage large art collections.
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It’s a tough moment in time for publicly-funded institutions, particularly those in the field of arts and culture. When even small optimisations can help to provide greater financial security, mobile shelving can be a common-sense investment that provides benefits in multiple different areas. The cost savings from reducing storage footprints, improving storage capacity, and deferring costly expansion can be redirected into educational programs, exhibitions, and community engagement.
While arts funding is increasingly uncertain, the value of the arts and their ability to entertain, educate and inspire has never been more pertinent or more necessary. Upgrading to mobile shelving is just one small step that can help institutions to focus on what truly matters—both preserving culture and keeping it accessible to the public.
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