Preparations for the move to the new Library of Birmingham

by Sarah Pymer on 07 February 2013

Video Credit: 2 Hours in 1 Minute Timelapse of repackaging work; featuring Eleanor Woodward and Kathryn Hall, and produced by Brigitte Winsor.

Some of our customers have asked why we need to close for the better part of a year just to move some boxes of papers. Well, as an archivist who’s been working exclusively on preparations for the move for over two years, I thought I should explain.

The archive collections we currently hold stretch over 16km of shelving, and comprise tens of thousands of boxes, rolls and volumes – and that’s not including our published local studies material and newspaper volumes. In order to move all our material safely (and find it again at the other end) we need to ensure that every single box and volume has its reference number written on it, and that we have recorded as much information as possible about it in our database, CALM.

Over the last four years a dedicated team has been working to enter information into CALM from our old paper records. This means that many of our catalogues can now be searched electronically, and we can easily track when, and who by, a collection was deposited. As part of this we have taken the opportunity to improve our catalogues where we can to bring them up to modern cataloguing standards. You can see some of the fruits of our work in the Archives and Heritage catalogue at http://calmview.birmingham.gov.uk/calmview

Find out more about the move to the Library of Birmingham