Building redevelopment update
Laying the foundations for the move
The National Library of New Zealand and the Alexander Turnbull Library are getting ready to move to temporary premises while we redevelop the Wellington building.
The building is fast running out of space for the heritage collections, which are also at risk from leaks and condensation. The new Library will upgrade aging plant, include environmentally sustainable features and vastly improve collection storage and conditions, ensuring New Zealanders have access to their heritage for generations to come.
The new Library will showcase the precious collections – worth almost $1 billion – in vibrant spaces, encouraging New Zealanders to engage and interact with our nation’s treasures in new ways, and maximising the physical and digital opportunities of the new building.
Relocating collections and services
Over the past months we have been working through the collections and services that we will be able to offer through the period that we are out of the building.
Our first step was to identify all the alternate locations we needed for staff and collections, which has been a complex task – but one that needed to be done before we could start to determine the availability of collections and services.
Packing and moving 95km of New Zealand's precious heritage is no small undertaking, and we estimate that we'll be doing this from May onwards. Finalising this detail, and that of collection access during the time we are out of the building, is our top priority, and we expect to be able to give you details about this in the next few weeks.
It is critical to ensure the collections are protected through this process. We've put detailed plans in place and engaged a top international collections protection expert to ensure that this is done to the very highest standards.
Good news
Reports received this week illustrated the high value of the National Library redevelopment to the Wellington construction market, particularly in the current economic climate.
The programme will boost the construction market, providing a bridge between those building projects finishing now and those expected to start in 2012, and represents around 30 percent of the value of all building projects likely to proceed in the Wellington region in the next two years.
Additionally, the design and construction of the building is expected to create jobs for almost 400 New Zealanders from 2009 to 2012.
We've also been working on managing the value that we get out of the new building, by creating efficiencies to improve how we use the space to collect, preserve, and deliver access to the collections for all New Zealanders.
Building the new Library offers us opportunities to increase the digitisation of images and other heritage resources, as well as enabling us to tackle backlogs on preservation and description activities – meaning that you will be able to access more and more of the collections online, and in person, over the next few years.
The building project is on track to deliver on time, and within our baseline funding.
Next steps
Over the next weeks, we'll be finalising detailed information about collection storage and access. We look forward to communicating these details with you over the next weeks.
