It seems I have even more than ILL in common with many of my
FIL committee colleagues judging by the new blogs over the last couple of
months. I too am new to blogging, don’t have a Face Book account and have never
tweeted. I am now progressing with one of the three anyway and will build up to
the others slowly!
My summer has been very different this year. Going back a
couple of years I began working with the University Librarian to secure University capital funding
for a major refurbishment of the Harold Cohen Library (HCL), one of two
libraries that make up the University of Liverpool Library and the library where
I am based. After
producing a paper detailing our proposals that passed through numerous
committees we finally received the news we have been waiting for and we were awarded £2.6 million. I was appointed Project Manager for the library and
this undertaking has been a steep learning curve for me. Never did I envisage
when I decided to become a Librarian that I would spend many hours meeting with
Architects, Structural Engineers, Electrical and Mechanical Engineers,
Quantity Surveyors etc in the course of my work. It has of course been an
incredibly exciting experience to have such close involvement and work towards
my dream of creating a much improved library experience for our students.
The plans were ambitious and work wasn’t able to start until
the academic sessions finished, although we had ‘fun’ during the May exam
period when essential asbestos clearance was required at short notice prior to
the commencement of the main building work.
There wasn’t really any area of the library that hasn’t been
affected as it was also decided to replace all the windows and re-roof the
building. To make the work more of a challenge we had to remain open throughout
the building work using a side emergency entrance for access and our temporary
Help Desk has had to operate from a PC room.
Just to give you a flavour of the extent of the building
work this is how the two top levels at the rear of the library looked soon
after the demolition commenced
and this was taken this week which shows there is still a way to go!
These two levels used to contain nearly 4 kilometres of
print journals and they will become group study zones with vending, bookable
small group study rooms, fixed PCs, lots of power and data for laptops etc. The
new areas are capable of accommodating more than 220 additional students.
We are also remodelling the Ground floor and this will
incorporate a new Help Desk and self-service area and Postgraduate Study Room.
The end is now in sight, although delays mean that even this
week with Welcome Week fast approaching – yes it really is only next week – we
are still frantically working to get our service up and running from the new
area. With power and data still being installed and the Help Desk structure
only due on site today it really is going to be last minute and just in case I have felt it wise
to have a plan B… it’s certainly not been a stress free summer!
I am looking forward to making progress on tasks I have had
to put to one side while I was Project Manager on this venture and, of course
taking an active role as a FIL committee member.
Lesley Butler
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