GUARDIANS OF NATIONAL LIBRARY ENDORSE REVISED PROPOSAL

Statement from Lydia Wevers, Chair of The Guardians, pic right.

The Guardians/Kaitiaki of the Alexander Turnbull Library endorse the revised proposal for the National Library building.

We particularly welcome the emphasis placed by the Minister on ‘protecting the nation’s treasures’. The Guardians have been working since June 2008 to ensure that Turnbull receives maximum benefit from the building redevelopment.

The revised budget offers an opportunity to revisit the design of the building focussing on repair and storage needs and that the building redesign meets the requirements of the National Library Act 2003.

The Act requires that the Alexander Turnbull Library and the National Library are appropriately differentiated, both at the collection and user level, and that Turnbull has ‘suitable and separate accommodation’.
The Guardians are concerned to ensure that the outcome for Turnbull is an improvement on what is already offered, particularly the character and services of Turnbull as a research library.

The Guardians believe this can be accomplished through digitisation, the reduction of the backlog in arrangement and description, improved facilities, and continued investment in staff expertise. The Turnbull is the premier research library in New Zealand.

Its functions are the generation of knowledge (by staff and researchers) as well as the collection and preservation of materials. The building redesign must reflect Turnbull’s unique character, its relation to the National Library and its capacity and needs as a research library. The Guardians are continuing to work hard to achieve these aims.

Lydia Wevers
Chair, Guardians of the Alexander Turnbull Library

For more on Alexander Turnbull himself link here.

Photo left, Alexander Turnbull in 1891, Van der Weyde.