Due to damage to the floor in the History corridor, this area will be closed for repair works between Sunday, 30th October at 1900hrs and Monday, 31st October, 0700hrs.

The repair works will take place along the whole of the History corridor, with no access to the corridor, reading room. In addition the staff entrance will be closed during these times.

This will mean that the reading rooms along the History corridor and the Dutch reading room will be inaccessible for 2 hours from Sunday 1900hrs to Sunday 2100hrs when the library closes.

It’s been a hectic summer for us here in the UCL Institute of Education library. We have been transformed with lots of new improvements and services introduced. We start the new academic year with some real post-merger achievements – notably the use of one card rather than two to access the library and one computing account for students rather than two. You can imagine jusy how much easier that is making our lives. Here are some of the other highlights:

Our newly configured Welcome Point has modernised our front-of-house to make a much better impact on viewing the library from the IOE’s main foyer. Note the backlit UCL branding sign on the front panel of the desk as well as the easy identification of the library by its full name “Newsam Library and Archives” for the first time since I’ve been working here.

Removal of the issue desk has really opened up the entrance space and allowed us to reconfigure our self service machines in a cluster. The bespoke white book boxes were provided as part of the desk refurbishment project. Our staff have done fantastically well to adapt to the new service model and it all seems to be working very well.

We also introduced self-service reservations based upon the model in use at other UCL library sites.

As well as only having one computing account to contend with, we have been able to ditch our old troublesome photocopiers which were end of life and have introduced multi-function devices (MFDs). The students seem to have taken to these like a duck to water.

Yet another major project over the summer was the migration from SirsiDynix Symphony to the Aleph system. This also allowed us to embed our catalogue and resources within Explore and means that we can now search across all the UCL libraries – a great one stop shop for our students. Below is a picture of some of the Explore machines which replaced our ageing and sluggish Mac OPACs.

Last but not least, we are almost there with laptop loans. The hardware is installed and in a week or two we should be ready to go. It is already drawing comments from people who are wondering what it is. When you explain, you can see how impressed users are.

I’d like to take this opportunity to thank all those involved in these projects across UCL Library service. If you are passing, do drop in and see the changes for yourself.

Since the re-structure on the 1st April this year the Library Buildings Team have had a working pattern focused on liaising with Estates and contractors. This has meant the team starting early in the morning, at 07:30, to ensure that projects are kept on track and delivery and installation runs smoothly. This is a fairly standard practice within the Construction Industry.

However, this has caused problems with the Buildings Team being unavailable to meet and interact with other Library Staff as they would usually leave at 15:30. This has made organising meetings difficult with limited time in the afternoon to meet before the Buildings Team home time.

From Monday 12th September the Library Buildings Team will be operating to a new schedule with more availability in the afternoons. The new team availability will be 07:15 – 17:15 Monday to Friday. Please continue to contact lib-buildings@ucl.ac.uk as this will be monitored by the Team during the above times, but individual staff may not be available.

The Buildings Team can be available outside of the above times with prior arrangement.

Following the circulation of the initial plan for Post-restructuring staff office moves we have received good feedback from staff and have been reviewing all comments and suggestions. We have highlighted three teams of staff who will have significant changes from the published plan. We have considered changes to be significant if the team was not moving in the original plan or if the team will move to a different building. We will be contacting the managers of the three teams on Monday 5th September to inform them of the proposed changes and these three teams will then have three weeks (ending on the 23rd September) to provide feedback.

We will review the new feedback and then publish a final Staff Office Move Plan. The plan will then be implemented between the end of September and December 2016. A proposed schedule will be circulated to managers at the start of October.

Apologies for the delay in this process. We wanted to ensure the plans would work, rather than rush to undertake staff moves and then find we had to move teams twice. Please bear with us, this is a very complicated move plan with 30 offices and more than 100 staff moving.

As some of you may have noticed the Science Library is currently wrapped in scaffolding. This is to provide access for much need roof repair works that will be starting on Monday 5th September. The scaffolding has taken some time to erect as they have only been working at the weekend to minimise disruption to the summer schools and graduations.

As part of the works the contractors, Sykes & Sons, will be applying a roof overlay treatment (liquid plastic) and this can create odours. The new fresh air intake/ AHU unit are located on the roof where the contractors will be working, so there is a potential for the odour to enter the building. The Project Team have reviewed the COSHH data sheets for the product being used and the substance is not harmful. However, if you detect or have reported to you any odour in the Science Library over the next month, please report this immediately to the Buildings Team via lib-buildings@ucl.ac.uk and we will review the way this element of the work is undertaken.

The roof repair works will be completed before the start of term. Some of scaffolding will not be removed until after this date, again the scaffolders will only be working weekends. The scaffold blocking part of the Science Library main entrance will be removed before the start of term.

During the duration of the works the contractors will be accessing the roof via room 416. This is to limit disruption in the reading rooms as the main roof access goes via the Engineering Reading Room. Please ensure that both rooms 417 & 418 are locked after use. Keys are available form Security at the Library entrance.

Estates will be undertaking much needed repairs to the DMS Watson Science Library roof.

These works commenced over the weekend of 23rd and 24th of July with the erection of scaffolding around the DMS Watson Building and part of the Petrie Museum roof. The scaffolding work is being undertaken every weekend thereafter or after 6.30pm, Monday to Friday (optional) for the next three to four weeks to keep disruption to students and staff to a minimum.

The scaffolding is primarily being erected for access and safety reasons and will include protection for the building entrances. This project will be coordinated and managed by the principal contractor Sykes & Sons who with the sub-contractor will have attendance/banksmen on site to ensure this is carried out appropriately.

The works are expected to take approximately nine weeks inclusive of erection and removal of the scaffold.

Please ensure you take extra care when entering or exiting the DMS Watson and Petrie Museum buildings. Please inform the Library Buildings Team if you experience any problems relating to this project.

Library Buildings Team contact Details:

Jay Woodhouse – james.woodhouse@ucl.ac.uk

Phil Watson – phil.watson@ucl.ac.uk

Ricky Estwick – r.estwick@ucl.ac.uk

Andrew Powell – andrew.powell@ucl.ac.uk

We recently installed some wonderful study desks and chairs in the Donaldson reading room as part of a series of mini-refurbishments of selected reading rooms in the Main Library.  Sustainability and environmental credentials of this new furniture was carefully considered, so I’m sharing these with you, so you know how the new chair you may have sat on relates to our environmental policy.

Oak furniture – sustainability 

The oak used on the new furniture, on both the tables and chairs, is sourced exclusively from sustainable forests, certified by FSC. Quarter sawn sections are specified where appropriate to allow maximum use of logs, as well as ensure maximum longevity, thereby locking up the carbon usage. All glues used in production are water based, with no animal derivatives used at any stage. Lacquer’s used are also water based, avoiding use of environmentally harmful acid based materials. The chairs are manufactured in a workshop as close to the forest as is possible, reducing transportation of raw materials and double handling, therefore minimising the footprint of the individual chairs enormously.

Best wishes,

Sarah

p.s laptop sockets due to be installed during the Summer.

Some minor updates on these two construction projects taking place near the Main Library.

New Student Centre

Work to demolish the ‘node’ to the rear of the Bloomsbury Theatre is going extremely well and is expected to finish in the next 4 weeks.

Soon minor excavation works will be taking place near to the corner of 26 Gordon Street, digging to unearth HV cables servicing the site.  There may be some noise around the area of the ‘old beach site’ during this time.

Removal of the Mono Pitch Roof to the Advanced Centre for Biochemical Engineering (ACBE building) will be commencing soon. This work stripping the roof is expected to generate a little noise, similar to that created by the brock ‘crunching’ that is taking place to bring down the node.

The new Student Centre: Nicholas Hare Architects

Wilkins Terrace

Concrete pouring of the new terrace is almost complete and brick work on the 4th façade will be starting soon and continue over the next few weeks. Disruption to the Main Library caused by these works is not expected to increase above the levels experienced in recent weeks.

From March 18^th the new staff entrance for the Science Library, which will be located on Darwin Walk, just around the corner from the current entrance, will be ready to use. Please note that the current staff entrance will cease to be operational from March 18th.

The new Darwin Walk staff entrance will allow refurbishment works to start in the area of the Help Point/old staff entrance, creating a new Records Office and Stores Office space.

Also worth noting is that there will be a new location for the Science Library staff flexi clock; on the pillar near the pods in the Learning Lab.

Best wishes,

Sarah

Phase 2 of the Eastman Library refurbishment is now complete. The library quiet reading room and mezzanine have been renovated and fitted with new, fully IT-enabled desks, and some desktop computers have been installed for readers who wish to use a computer and don’t have their own laptop.

We have also converted the upstairs photocopy room into an IT-enabled study room which can be used on a walk-in basis.

We hope that this upgrade will provide a high-quality, modern space which will improve the experience of all the Eastman users.

The Eastman Library – and our equipment, including iPads – also features in the new promotional UCL Eastman Dental Institute video (although this was filmed before phase 2 of the refurbishment!)

UCL Eastman Dental Library newly refurbished quiet reading room