PRESENT
POSITION RELATING TO RESEARCH AT GREENWICH
The
Sammy Ofer Wing was officially opened during the
evening of 12th July 2011, by Jeremy Hunt M.P., with the public
allowed access as of the 14th. A mildly ‘glittering’ event, with
lots of dignitaries, caviar and champagne (but hardly any academics and virtually
no readers), there was much self-congratulation
of the new construction. Of fascinating note, in speeches made next year’s
Olympics were mentioned frequently, as an important element of the museum’s wondrous
future that is now assured.
The
newly-constituted Caird Library was also on view to
those attending this opening, but readers will not be able to get access until
July 14th. Even then, this will only be to a limited degree. Although there had been previous promised
dates for access to the rest of the library stocks and all manuscripts,
these have now disappeared on the museum’s updated website. The last mentioned was
mid September.
With
approximately the same area of the old library, the new incarnation is at first
sight pleasing: tastefully designed and airy. Nevertheless, weaknesses could
already be detected, even within a short time of being there. As was already
known, only around twenty-five per cent of the past stock will now be available
on the shelves though. In future, for all but the most basic of searches targeted
towards the casual visitor, unlike in the old library where browsing could
produce all sorts of new leads, this will now be pointless. Saliently, unless
the museum’s cataloguing has improved dramatically, I confidently predict that some areas of research will become far more difficult than in the past. My
understanding is that this situation has arisen entirely because the original
plans were significantly altered (for
reasons that are politic not to mention publically). Nevertheless, it is not without the bounds of ingenuity
for some of these weaknesses to be corrected. Only time will tell as to whether
these can be negotiated. Some of these would mean very minor substitution of stock.
Others might mean increasing the shelving space.
One
other point did not occur to me until after I had left the premises. This
relates to the viewing of very large artefacts, such as charts. I will
investigate when next back at Greenwich.
Anyway,
until the situation settles down and full access is given, the most up to date
information can be found online at http://www.nmm.ac.uk/researchers/library/visiting/.