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This week has mostly been a thesis writing week: progress is slow, painful, but ongoing. However, I had a break on Wednesday for the CILIP UCR East Midlands Group AGM and library visit to the new David Wilson library at Leicester University. An email about the event just happened to hit my inbox as I was going back to the East Midlands prior to my course, I'm a member of both the UCR Group and East Midlands Branch, and our Librarian at Essex had recently walked us through the plan of the library in a meeting, so overall it seemed like fate was calling me there!

The AGM itself was reasonably brief, but it was good to go and hear about the kind of events they'd run during the year, most of which I was sad I'd missed out on (but unable to attend during my trainee post anyway). Then we hit the library for the tour.

The library has been built using the shell of the old library - the extension was added, then the library moved into the extension, then they renovated the old section, and joined the two, fairly seamlessly. It was a £35m job, and boy, did it show. Everything looks and smells new: especially the leather seating. There are fabulous facilities, like large and well equipped group rooms, and it has another of the exciting book sorting RFID machines I saw at UEA, only this time with the books going directly onto the trolleys!

Everywhere we went there seemed to be something new and exciting to see, from the graduate study lounge, available only with card access (oh, how I want one!) to the chair sponsored in honour of Engelbert Humperdinck! The only bit that isn't super-sparkling, beautifully ventilated and light, and glamorously furnished is, of course, the staff area, but still, a lot better than most.

Do I actually think that this was money well spent? Well, the summertime is always a quiet time for libraries, but over above this the quality of the experience of using the library made the students appear extra-studious in their activities. Of course, it's not possible to rebuild every 5 years, but I think a lot of libraries could benefit from a face lift every once in a while, to avoid a slide into mild grottiness. Also, it seems a rather mundane point, but as someone who's worked in rather old library buildings, I can't even imagine how great it would be to work in somewhere well-ventilated and temperature controlled. What a sad statement about librarianship! The downside? Well, of course, the staff offices were where the air conditioning didn't work, but at least units were being installed! Lastly, the benefits of having enough space for all the books - a rarer luxury than I was aware before I entered the library world - can't be underestimated.

I guess I've come away with library envy.

Labels: CILIP, library tech, library visits, phd