Then later in the morning this comment was posted to my blog:
I have to be anoymous here as I am a staff member at the National Library. I work with Turnbull collections and the researchers who use them.
Paul Reynolds does certainly NOT represent the views of myself or my colleagues. We have never had any engagement with him in his role as "adjunct director". That role seems to be entirely about Carnaby's vision for a digital experience on the ground floor of the new building. Some of his misconceptions need to be corrected.
1.Our concerns are with the new building and the rushed relocation, not the need to make the collections more available by digital means. We all strongly support that, But we don't need an ugly new building to do it
2. It is uncertain how much new collection space will be provided but it is at the most an extra 10 years. Are we going to spend $70m on another building when that space gets used up? You don't need a $70m building for extra collection space. All research libraries eventually find offsite storage for lower use collections.
3. The plant equipment in the current building is getting old - but it can be replaced. Restoring optimum storage conditions does not need a a new building
4. The proposed space for the Turnbull research library is much smaller than the existing areas for researchers. This is mainly because the whole ground floor (apart from the Gallery - which we have already) will now be taken up by Carnaby's digital playland
5. There seems serious doubt if researchers will be able to get the same service as before. The specialist pictorial, manuscripts and oral history areas, for example, are being done away with - everything will be provided from one generic research desk
6. Evidently the plans do not allow for any soundproofing walls between the digtial experiences (such as the kidzone) on the ground floor, and the Turnbull research area now consigned to the first floor mezzanine.
This is all appalling enough. The hectic, last-minute, poorly-planned process of shifting everything out of the building for two and a half years, without any adequate warning to researchers is just as awful. Staff are demoralised by all this. Consultation has been a farce - but we are committed to trying to work through it - to do what we can to maintain the values and services of a great research library.
To which Paul Reynolds has responded as follows:
Interesting - so the anonoymous correspondent who began this thread is a "Turnbull User" because he/she actually works there. This seems an important distinction, and should have perhaps been made clearer at the outset.
But let's move on. As I said in my last post, most of his concerns are for others to pick up. As for his comments about me - again, the tone is more interesting than the substance.
For the record my role is to contribute to the broad reach of projects and ideas that are needed to ensure the NL becomes a first class example of how to use digital and online services as core dimension to all of the NL's activities. And that includes thinking about how best to digital services with the needs of researchers, et al. And if you think that's all rhetoric, then, truly, you don't know me at all!
Anonymous says I don't represent his views or his colleagues.It is hard to know what to say about that. After all, he seems to know who I am. I don't have the same privilege about him. Speaking of irony - curiously, he has more digital privileges than I do. I have no internal access rights, can't see the intranet, nor do I have a National Library e-mail account, or any system or library privileges. I can't even take a book home!
Curiously, I'm around the Wellington Library today if he works there, as opposed to the other three NL buildings in Auckland, Christchurch and Palmerston North, and wants a conversation, why doesn't he tap me on the shoulder and we can have a coffee? Might be a little more civilised than throwing rocks out onto the public square?
paul reynolds
http://www.peoplepoints.co.nz/
Footnote:
Paul Reynolds has suggested that Turnbull User who started this thread and Anonymous are the same person.The Bookman is able to advise him that is not the case.
Anyone else have anything to say on this subject?
PS The whisper around Wellington today is that the Government are about to can the project anyway!
8 comments:
I learned today that Philip Rainer has left the Turnbull--a major loss of someone deeply committed to the value of archival research. As a historian, I share the concerns that have been raised. Digitization of archival material is important, but it doesn't require a $70m internet arcade to access such material--my computer will do fine. For the very high proportion of material that will never be digitized, they keys remain as they always have been--storing it, indexing it, making it accessible to researchers. If the building plans won't help in that, why bother?
It would be better than useful if the participants in this row were to get to grips with the issues and leave out the personal hurts slights rebuffs and whatever. The worst aspect of that is that the genuine value of what is being debated here gets debased. Digital is the future skeleton for libraries large and small - that does not eradicate several hundred perhaps thousands of year of what the core business of libraries is - information and how it is transmitted and - most importantly - the cultural and historical values of those transmitters. Having that stuff, preserving it and making it accessible is what libraries are for. That should be at the core of this debate. Will the proposed new building make that better or inhibit it. A fair proportion believe the latter and a few the former. I personally belong to the Tui billboard camp - I would be wouldn't I having lived through the Te Papa debacle. Is the proposed Library a monument to the ambitions of administrators and boards or is it going to be truly better library? Past experience tells us that we might not be able to fairly have that debate. New brooms are at work in Wellington should they do some sweeping here? What would we have to loose by a careful and transparent scrutiny. The Te Papa cock up was fundamentally a battle between a building and a museum which the museum clearly lost - betrayed by is board and its - who knew little of museums - and by its senior managers who had dumped its institutional memory. Is this what is happening at the library or not? We need to know it is our library and our collections and our cultural memory being screwed with here!
The staff member's revelations only serve to confirm the worst fears of the Wellington research community. I have yet to met a single regular user of the National Library who supports the redevelopment. If that has not set off alarm bells among those advancing these proposals then I am not sure quite what will.
Apart from the immediate concerns regarding the lack of information about the (presumably) impending closure of the library, and what access will be available to its resources during the three-year closedown, there are more fundamental issues concerning the vision for this when it eventually reopens.
The loss of specialist expertise and advice as a consequence of the proposed single point of issue is of real concern, as is the apparent downgrading of the library as a place of research.
As for Paul Reynolds' concern that those posting on this topic should reveal their identities, without wishing to cast aspersions on his own motives in coming out in support of library management, I would ask this simple question: how long does he think his ongoing consultancy role with the National Library would last for had he posted anything critical of the redevelopment? For staff members who would quickly find themselves out of a job if revealed as whistleblowers, or regular visitors to the library such as myself who would become persona non grata with its management, there are very good reasons for choosing to remaim anonymous.
Sorry friends but this is not the East Berlin - it seems weird to me that the only two posters whio are prepared to use their names are Paul Reynolds and me - we are friends and we have diffreing views - but what kind of world are we imagining here where concealment seems some kind of badge of dissent - if you want to debate this issue then stand up and be counted or shut up - debate is not worth having in this cloaked way and if your fears are real then take the risk - do the time and by that expose the bullies - that will certainly weaken their case and strengthen yours
As someone undertaking a large research project, which I had assumed would include my being able to access the Turnbull Library collections, could someone please clarify the temporary closure. When will it start, and to what extent? (Panicking now)
I don't mind using my real name: I've done research in the Turnbull and admire its resources and its calm and encouraging staff.
A redesigned research room wide-open to the rest of the library (if true?) seems like a mistake to me. Not just in terms of sound-proofing, but also for security reasons... I wouldn't want to see any of our precious documents walking or sailing off, folded into a paper airplane.
That said, there are some pretty gorgeous new library buildings out there with spectacular glass facades (Seattle, Salt Lake City). It makes sense to make the most of that elusive Wellington sun -- of course, I'm presuming the design deliberating incorporates passive solar heating?
One of the few definite things that is known about proposed changes to the National Library is that there will be a review of the Music Services and Collections, starting sometime this month.
This is a collection that the National Library was happy to describe in its annual report several years ago as one of its outstanding collections.
So will there be room for it at all in the new building? Will there be any specialist staff retained to help local and distant users? Will the non-NZ portions of the collections be retained at all?
We don’t know yet, but the Minister says that the National Library's music collections "are being reviewed in terms of their New Zealand and Pacific focus and that it will consider options for the delivery of services".
Sue Sutherland on National Radio mentioned options such as 'partnering' with an outside institution such as a University Library.
We hope everyone interested in music will take the time to respond to the review documents when they appear.
Phillippa McKeown-Green
International Association of Music Libraries (NZ)
This does seem to boil down to a Te Papa generic arguement. The expenditure on the refurbishment of the existing building is being argued on the pro side as being driven by the collections - the care and access - and on the anti side as exessive expenditure the public face of the institution. Which is it? The antis say the actual space gain is a mere 3000sq metres all of it entry space the pros say that space will provde digital access and that there will be general and necessary improvements to the condition of the building and thus the security of the collections. Is there some way those of us who watch alarmed from the fringe can know where the truth lies?
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