The practicalities of working in historic buildings with special collections and the challenges of making changes to spaces and services.

This year's programme focuses on practical elements of working in historic libraries. From planning for disasters to dealing with insurers, we will also hear about making changes to buildings from the theoretical to the practical – and what we do with our books in the meantime. Papers will cover disaster preparedness, insurance issues, building projects, and collection moves amongst other subjects.

Optional tours of nearby college libraries will close the day.

This is a hybrid event taking place in person at Merton College, Oxford, and also online via Zoom.

The in-person registration fee is £60 and the online fee is £10. Registration for in-person attendance will close on Friday 20 November. If you need to pay by invoice please contact the HLF Treasurer by email: sprosser [at] ras.ac.uk.

Programme:

10:00 – Registration, Coffee

10:30 – Conference begins. Housekeeping. Introductions

10:40 - 11.00 – Emma Dadson (Harwell). Planning for disasters.

11:00 - 11:20 – Andrew Cheney (Hiscox). Risk Assessment: an insurer’s approach.

11:20 - 11:30 – Questions for speakers

11.30 - 11.50 – Coffee

11:50 - 12.10 – Emma Murphy (Jamie Briggs Removals). The logistics of a collections move

12:10 - 12:30 – Dunstan Speight (Lincoln’s Inn). Benefits of hindsight: building projects in and around historic libraries

12:30 - 12:40 – Questions for speakers.

12:40 - 13:40 – Lunch

13:40 - 13:55 – AGM

13:55 - 14.15 – Speaker tbc. Managing collections in public spaces

14:15 - 14:35 – Hugh Maguire (Dr Williams’s Library). Tackling the inevitable: The need to change to stay the same and the case of the Dr Williams's Trust & Library

14:35 - 14:45 – Questions for speakers

14:45 - 15:05 – Coffee

15:05 - 15:35 Steven Archer (Trinity College, Cambridge). A “case” study: the installation of new display cases in the Wren Library

15:35 – 15:55 – Meagan Smith (Lambeth Palace Library). Out from the old, into the new - challenges of environmental controls in historic and new buildings

15:55 – 16:05 – Questions for speakers

16:05 - 16:15 – Final round up

16:15 – 16:55 – Optional tour of College libraries

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Image Licence: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)

Credit: Early Printed Books in strong room. Wellcome Collection. Source: Wellcome Collection (https://wellcomecollection.org/works/q8bwps49).

Description supplied by the event organiser.