Breakfast at Black Betty’s Café ,
163a Madras Street.
Monday 12 December, 7.30 am.

The Café is opening earlier for us. This is a “celebrate the end of the year” breakfast with no guest speakers. Please RSVP to nicki.moen@xtra.co.nz before the end of day on Wednesday 7 December.
Joan Simpson

The evacuation from the James Hight building this morning was not a trial. The smoke detectors had been activated on level 1. Following a check of the building by the fire deparment, students and staff were back in the building by 9.20am. Thank you to all staff who took on the role of wardens.
Joan Simpson

From Show weekend onwards the Hawkins Construction team plan to start removing windows and frames from the north side of levels 2-4 of the James HIght Building. This will mean that at some time over December/January some areas of Levesl 2, 3 and 4 will not be fully available to staff and students. The reason the north side windows are being replaced first is that stage 2 of the undercroft will continue and the University is planning for Stage 2 to be completed by the start of the academic year 2012. UC would prefer that there was no scaffolding on the north side of the building come the start of semester 1 2012.

From February 2012 the Hawkins teams will start work on Level 11 and work their way down the building over the year. Level 7 will be cleared first and fitted out with shelving. Bookstock will then be moved from level 11 and placed on the shelves on level 7. The floor will then be cleared and all work completed before the shelving and books go back. The type of work planned is – new windows and frames, new carpet, walls painted, replacement of heavy ceiling tiles, probably changes to the heating system and maybe changes to the lights. Final decisions on the amount of work on each level has not been made. The building should look fantastic when all of the work is completed sometime in 2013. In the meantime though we do have to work through a period of noise and disruption. All book movements will be handled by the Hawkins contract staff rather than the library staff. Any questions get in touch. Joan Simpson

Please do not forward this information to the wider UC community at this time. Once the Library has a timeline for the work and we have made the final decisions regarding access – a message will go out to all. All stock will be accessible throughout the next year. However, at some times the access may be restricted to staff only or by appointment. Thanks Joan

UC Libraries are advertising for 5 Casual Library Assistants. The closing date is 19 October. If you know someone who would be excellent in this role then please encourage them to apply. Joan Simpson

By the end of this week the Central Library will have 6 LCD screens set up for people to view Google earth. As the photo shows there will be 6 LCD screens inside a circular framework. There will be a control device for people to use with the software. Once installed staff will be trained to restart the system should it stop. I hope you all come and have a look at the display.

I would like to make it very clear to all staff using the level 3 kitchen that washing a mug and leaving it upside down on the bench is not good enough.
If you wish to use this space you need to wash and dry your dishes. The kitchen bench should always be left clear. We are all sharing this small space and we need to show respect for each other by leaving this space clean and clear. I believe the problems we began to have with the supply of clean tea and hand towels has now been solved. We have 7 tea towels for the week so can replace the tea towel daily.
Thanks for your cooperation.
Joan Simpson

On Monday 12 September at 8 am level 11 will be available for study and borrowing. This is quite a day for the Central Library team and for those who use this library. Since 4 September 2010 it will be the first day that all library floors are open eg levels 2-4 6, 8-11. Levels 5 and 7 are still not available for use but at this time I am not including level 7 as the Central Library.
Thank you to all of the teams who have helped to get the library open.
Joan Simpson

Level 4 opened last Friday. Please see the photos to prove it is back up and running.

Photos of level 4
On level 4 e have tried to leave good clear spaces around the core so that furniture will not block access to the stairwell in an evacuation. One of the reasons I put the shelving the other way between the lifts was that if it collapsed it would not collapse towards the stairs. Please note when I made this decision I was advised that there would not be a problem changing the direction of the lights. However since the shelves have been up it has been decided that it will cost too much to change the direction of the lights at this time. So yes the lighting is terrible on the shelves between the lifts. I hope to achieve some improvement in the coming weeks.

It may be a few weeks before the permanent signage goes up. I have used the standard library of congress terms on the temporary signs so these may change once Rosie has had a look at them and compared them to what will go in the bay ends.

The bay ends are temporary as there are no subject headings on them yet but they are a guide.

We will probably have about 300 boxes in sequence on the floor. This isn’t great but right now I am not going to consider adding more shelving. The items in the boxes should be in sequence so finding them should not be possible.

We still need to shelf check and dust many of the shelves.

I think level 11 could be finished by the end of next week. We are now using staff from Enterprise services rather than students on a casual basis. People find the work demanding and really don’t last all that long.

There is still further remediation work to be completed in the James Hight Building. Basically it is only the emergency repairs which are finished. I don’t have dates etc but there will be more disruption of access to floors to come. When speaking with library users please assure them that any damaged concrete they see around the building is non-structural. There are no concerns regarding the structural integrity of this building.

Joan Simpson

I encourage you all to have a look at the changes to the undercroft. In my opinion the architects have achieved a good result. Blending the inside of the Central Library wood work and concrete look with the new undercroft.
Joan Simpson

Thursday 8 September, about 6pm onwards, CPIT Council Room L233
Aoraki LIANZA have organised an evening to get together with our Christchurch//Canterbury Librarians. We have also invited the following LIANZA members
Bill Macnaught (National Librarian),
Jane Hill (LIANZA President),
Heather Lamond (LIANZA President Elect) and
Alli Smith (LIANZA Executive Director)

Following food and drinks (generously sponsored by LIANZA), Bill will talk about current progress at the National Library and Jane will give a short talk on LIANZA’s future plans.

We would also like to hear about the positive things which are happening across our region.

It will be a great opportunity for us all to get together – I think the first time this year. We’ll need people to RSVP so we can organise food catering and drinks.

Please email Kim Slack with numbers attending and perhaps an indication of wine (red or white)/beer/juice preference and any dietary requirements: kim.slack@ccc.govt.nz

As this is short notice, I’d appreciate it if you could forward this information on to others.

Joan Simpson