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The Old Library Redevelpment Project at Trinity College Dublin: sustaining and preserving the building and its collections, and providing continuity of access
- 1. The Old Library Redevelopment Project: sustaining and preserving the building and its collections, and providing continuity of access Susie Bioletti, Keeper of Preservation & Conservation Laura Shanahan, Head of Research Collections The Library of Trinity College Dublin CONUL Conference 25 May 2023
- 2. Trinity College Dublin, The University of Dublin Trinity College Dublin, The University of Dublin 2
- 3. Trinity College Dublin, The University of Dublin Trinity College Dublin, The University of Dublin Current context: Largest heritage building project in the country featuring two iconic buildings Ireland’s most important cultural artefact(s) 3
- 4. Trinity College Dublin, The University of Dublin Trinity College Dublin, The University of Dublin 4 Research Collections Reading Room Early Printed Books & Special Collections Manuscripts & Archives Disclaimer – these are not real readers
- 5. Trinity College Dublin, The University of Dublin Trinity College Dublin, The University of Dublin 5
- 6. Trinity College Dublin, The University of Dublin Trinity College Dublin, The University of Dublin 6 Image credit – Glenbeigh Records Management
- 7. Trinity College Dublin, The University of Dublin Trinity College Dublin, The University of Dublin 7 Image credit – Glenbeigh Records Management
- 8. Trinity College Dublin, The University of Dublin Converting the 1872 Catalogue Known as the 'Printed Catalogue' or the '1872 Catalogue' • Records previously handwritten • Books acquired up until 1872 • Long Room and Gallery & the Fagel Collection • Catalogue designed and printed in Trinity • Nine volume set • Basic records • Took 52 years to complete • Colourful history –see references 8
- 9. Trinity College Dublin, The University of Dublin
- 10. Trinity College Dublin, The University of Dublin Ussher Library atrium 10 Interim Research Collections Study Centre
- 11. Trinity College Dublin, The University of Dublin Trinity College Dublin, The University of Dublin Printing House 11
- 12. Trinity College Dublin, The University of Dublin Trinity College Dublin, The University of Dublin 12 Image courtesy Heneghan Peng Architects
- 13. Trinity College Dublin, The University of Dublin Trinity College Dublin, The University of Dublin 13
- 14. Trinity College Dublin, The University of Dublin Trinity College Dublin, The University of Dublin 14 Images courtesy Event exhibition designers The Book of Kells Experience
- 15. Trinity College Dublin, The University of Dublin Trinity College Dublin, The University of Dublin Minister Noonan visit 15
- 16. Trinity College Dublin, The University of Dublin Trinity College Dublin, The University of Dublin 16
- 17. Trinity College Dublin, The University of Dublin 17
- 18. Trinity College Dublin, The University of Dublin Trinity College Dublin, The University of Dublin 18
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- 26. Trinity College Dublin, The University of Dublin 26 Irish suppliers PPE – gloves, aprons, bump hats etc Radionics & Fischer Scientific: FisherIE.orders@thermofisher.com orders.ie@rs-components.com Boxes - Archive box co; Cardboard box Co: john.newell@archivalbox.ie info@cardboardboxco.ie Eco wrap Southern Tapes and Packaging Ltd: sales@stppackaging.ie Security tags Red Arrow: info@redarrow.ie Vacuum cleaners Nilquip Ireland: sales@nilquip.ie Archival RFID tags Interleaf Technologies: www.interleaf.ie Acid-free tissue Darac: post@darac.ie Dollies Codex: www.codex.ie
- 27. Trinity College Dublin, The University of Dublin 27 International suppliers Archival envelopes Conservation by Design info@cxdglobal.com Vacuum mini-parts Conservation by Design info@cxdglobal.com Smoke sponges Conservation by Design info@cxdglobal.com Filmoplast P90 and dispersers Neschen Coating GmbH c.wunderlich@neschen.de Trolleys Norseman Direct Ltd sales@norsemandirect.com Acid free tissue PEL (UK) www.preservationequipment.com Conservation by Design info@cxdglobal.com Cotton tying tape Wilhelm Leo’s Nachfolger gmbh/gmw gmw@gmw-gabikleindorfer.de
- 28. Trinity College Dublin, The University of Dublin Trinity College Dublin, The University of Dublin 28
- 29. Trinity College Dublin, The University of Dublin Trinity College Dublin, The University of Dublin 29
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- 31. Trinity College Dublin, The University of Dublin Trinity College Dublin, The University of Dublin 31
- 32. Thank you Susie Bioletti, Keeper of Preservation & Conservation Laura Shanahan, Head of Research Collections The Library of Trinity College Dublin
Editor's Notes
- ABSTRACT: Library and Sustainable Development Goals The Old Library Redevelopment Project (https://www.tcd.ie/old-library-campaign/) is a once in a lifetime conservation project being undertaken to ensure that Trinity’s iconic eighteenth-century library building, housing extensive historic collections, is sustained into its fourth century. Working with external experts, alongside internal stakeholders including Academic, Commercial, Estates and Library, the programme is complex, encompassing three co-dependent construction projects; including the complete decant of all of the Old Library’s collections, and the commitment of continuity of service to readers and visitors throughout the multi-year building closure period. The programme includes redevelopment of two protected historic structures, the development of a temporary reading room space and also an interim exhibition for the Book of Kells, as well as the use of commercial offsite low-oxygen storage for the collections. The processes used for the decant will reduce risks to the collections, improve documentation, and provide greater visibility via the online catalogue. Throughout, the Library is seeking to minimise the project’s climate impact, and re-use as many materials and items of furniture as is viable. Susie Bioletti, Keeper of Preservation & Conservation (and lead on Library sustainability), and Laura Shanahan, Head of Research Collections, will present these aspects of the Redevelopment Project in this parallel session. Whilst describing the overall project activities, they will explore its alignment with the UN Sustainable Development Goals: Quality Education, Decent Work and Economic Growth, Sustainable Cities and Communities, and Climate Action. They will cover topics such as the care of collections in a historic building with a city-centre location, the fundamental sustainability act of building re-use, the employment of specialist contractors, and examples of steps being taken during the current collection decant phase to minimise carbon impact and reuse materials.
- This is the exterior of Trinity College Dublin’s historic “Old Library”. It is a 18th century masterpiece of architecture, which houses the founding collections of Trinity College, the Book of Kells, some of our earliest legal deposit collections, and modern rare books and archives. The building serves a multiplicity of purposes: it accommodates just shy of one million tourist visitors per year as a public exhibition space; it is a storage space for the collections (both on and off public view); it provides reader facilities for scholars and students using these collections; and accommodates the staff associated with all of these functions. The building is due to undergo a full redevelopment to address weakness in fire prevention and suppression, and in environmental control for many of the collections. The programme is urgent, and the enabling phase is underway – with the full decant of all collections from the building and other activities to provide continuity of services during the building closure. To us this means two primary things: Continuity of access to collections and expertise for students and researchers, Continuity of access to the Book of Kells and Long Room exhibition for public visitors. Ensuring this continuity means involvement in three other related building projects, which I will detail in this presentation, encompassing: The creation of a new temporary Research Collections Study Centre, staff and collection storage space in the 21st century Ussher Library lower ground floor; Renovation of the 18th century Printing House building to accommodate the display of the Book of Kells during the Old Library closure; Construction of a temporary exhibition pavilion in New Square to provide a digital showcase of the collections, the project, and the Old Library building during closure. Each of these sub-projects have generated their own benefits and legacies, which I hope to touch on quickly today too.
- I just want to show you the interior of this building, which you may be familiar with – and to locate the reading room for students, academics and international scholars using our Research Collections – our manuscripts, archives, early printed books and special collections. I have to tell you, you don’t really know that this is where you are when you are in the reading room, as you enter via the 1960s building through a connected tunnel way.
- It looks like this, and has been a joint reading room since the Covid pandemic in 2020. In order to facilitate ongoing reader access, we have had to revise the model for service provision which means the reading room is now only routinely staffed by our Library Executives and Assistants. Our Archivists and Special Collections librarians provide support for advanced research queries and academic liaison – but otherwise their time is almost entirely diverted to oversight of the collection decant work for the Old Library redevelopment project in some way. There are three primary disruptors in this current arrangement around the project: Staffing levels are insufficient to remain open over lunch. Workspaces previously available for teaching with collections are no longer available, and we provide this service outside of reading room hours. An increasing quantity of material needs to be requested from offsite storage, creating a new time lag between request and delivery of items as we seek to accommodate the project and service. What’s heartening is that, despite a concurrent major digitisation programme, use of the reading room and the physical collections is on an upward trend and the team are routinely thanked for the quality of support for both our researchers and our students. Increasing numbers of undergraduate and masters students are making use of these collections, as a result of the Trinity Education Project focussing in on a high quality, research focussed education. We will soon be advertising a new role, “Services and Liaison Librarian” which will provide more detailed oversight of these reading room services, and our interactions with academics engaged in teaching with these collections, and appointing a new full-time Library Assistant to work across all collection formats in this space.
- I mentioned the new service model for collections access as a result of the project. What I mean here is that collections are moving from fairly inadequate storage spaces like this onsite in the building, in the historic open colonnades, to our offsite storage provider, Glenbeigh Records Management…
- To their ultra-modern, clean, highly inventoried low-oxygen warehouse building, which looks like this.
- Continuity of reader services has resulted in the documentation of new retrieval processes with our bookstacks team, and upskilling in collection handling. As the quantity of material offsite increases, we will be constantly examining the regularity of deliveries from offsite, whilst also paying attention to the carbon emissions of van deliveries. We have had to recently re-tender for our offsite storage provider, and the tender included additional attention to climate action for a more sustainable service model.
- One critical piece of the jigsaw puzzle in being able to provide the continuity of service, and in fact improve service on a massive scale, was the integration of digital records from our 1872 printed catalogue into our Sierra Library Management System. Christoph Schmidt-Supprian, Niamh Harte and Joe Nankivell from the Collection Management team have to be particularly thanked for their oversight of this major achievement which was delivered during the remote-working period of the covid pandemic. 18 teams members worked on the project in total. 159,000 records were added to the online catalogue for the first time: doing away with the need for paper dockets for reader requests and providing a fixed and secure inventory point from which we could hang individual items onto during the decant phase.
- I’m sure you have an impression of the variety of material in Trinity’s collections, but here is an overview. The most significant items in the collections are being prioritised to be retained on campus throughout the project – in appropriately designed spaces. But you can understand the reasons behind us going to rigorous lengths with our offsite storage and security arrangements: which Susie will detail more.
- So now to where we will be residing during the closure period for renovations… This is probably quite hard to visualise, but what you need to understand is that the reading room of the Old Library will move temporarily to the modern Ussher Library building in the next academic year to ensure continuity of reader services for Research Collections. The creation of this new space has been more complex than we would have anticipated and we are displacing nearly 80 standard reader desks to create this space – but I wont go into that here. With the single point design team, led by TAKA Architects, we are about to enter the construction phase for the accommodation of 28 readers spaces under the atrium of the Ussher Library, with associated reference collection storage and staff supervision. There will also be a new seminar room accommodating up to 12 seated. Behind the scenes is additional collection storage, informal staff meeting spaces, and workstations. The construction timeline for this space will be around 4 months, but to facilitate this work one half of our map collection has had to be temporarily relocated and several kilometres of other modern collections moved offsite permanently. Albeit temporary, this space will generate important legacies for the library and our readers – including the creation of new spaces available for group study, and appropriate alternative storage spaces for collections. It will also see the Map Library, which is part of Research Collections as a whole, work functionally side by side for a number of years.
- The Old Library Redevelopment Project is of course underpinned by a financial business model that requires ongoing economic growth within the University, and specifically then the income generation from the hundreds of thousands of visitors who come to the Book of Kells and Old Library each year. But beyond that, the Book of Kells exhibition is a real fabric of the experience of Dublin as a city and is important to the Trinity community. As a result, we are creating a new Book of Kells Experience to be in place for the duration of the closure period. It’s proving to be a really exciting project with a lasting legacy in the redevelopment of this important building (third oldest on campus, original home of Dublin University Press) for the display of the Book of Kells.
- Heneghan Peng architects
- This temporary pavilion….
- Book of Kells and Long Room collections experienced in an entirely different way. Event exhibition designers were tasked with the re-use of assets and content created by the Library primarily through our Virtual Trinity Library digital programme. Again generating efficiencies of economy for the highest impact.
- In the wider project, we also have: Finance and Procurement Managers Fundraisers Administrators Communications managers Project and Programme Managers Architects, Conservation Architects, Conservator/Restorers Building contractors IT and AV technicians Move Management Specialists and Art Handlers We also have our own conservators and librarians = 5 conservators, 5 archivists, 14 cataloguers, 1 systems librarian, 2 IT staff, 1 project manager, 1 manual handling trainer and others. And all but one of our Library Leadership Team is involved in this work in a detailed way on a daily basis. The whole Logistics & Collections care programme is overseen by the Deputy Librarian. But Susie is now going to talk in more detail about what this programme of work entails…. And specifically the work undertaken by this team of (currently 38) project assistants from Glenbeigh Records Management.
- Intro. Planning from 2019 – calculating resources; timing activities; pilot testing; surveying/sampling Building on our expertise with comprehensive risk analysis, identified three main risks: physical forces, disassociation, security. Most of the environmental risks – pollution, RH, Temp light would be improved in storage. Building in preservation of the collection.
- Here we are. Still a way to go but we are on track. Continuous analysis of progress, quality of work, supplies, budget. Daily meetings QC's and frequent recounts
- The basic steps
- Removing books
- cleaning
- Measuring slip cases
- RFID
- Documentation – all items visible in Sierra, grade 4 recorded, measurements, warehouse management
- Sustainability. Collections available for another 100 years plus. Building – reuse, reconfigure, readable, remain iconic
- Supplies. Sustainability, Irish first. Bulk orders.
- PAs – started with 12 during enabling period 2021. Now 38 maximum number. From diverse backgrounds – directly out of Third level, graduates of Library and Archives management; conservation. From 14 countries. Experience of a life time, skills transfer. Quality education. Decent employment – progression scale from PA to Senior PA. The Team leader is from the cohort.
- Sharing the processes with visitors – improving the visit experience, Economic growth. reaching a large global audience
- Last animation
- Last slide – the building exposing its skeleton.