Another new voice on the blog! I’m Victoria Hoyle, the City Archivist; or at least 40% of the City Archivist.  I job-share the role with Richard Taylor, working on a Monday and Tuesday.  The rest of the time I am studying for a PhD about archives and communities in York. (More on that another time!)  My job is to manage Archives and Local History with Richard, and to deliver our vision and objectives.  At the moment my life is all about the Heritage Lottery funded Gateway to History project, which I know you have heard about already.   Sarah has written about her work with the community archives recently – very exciting! – so I will give you an update on the building works which are now in full swing.

Over the next 9 months we will be extending York Explore Library to add an archives store, and refurbishing the former reference rooms to create three new public areas for using archives and local history collections.  We have planned the building work in four phases so that the library can stay open for as long as possible.   It will be business as usual until Phase 4 when the whole building will close for the most intrusive of the works.  According to the current timetable the closure will be from the beginning of June until the end of October this year.

We are about halfway through Phase 1 at the moment, which is all about preparing for the new store to be built in Phase 2.  The work is focused on the ground floor in the Children’s Library and part of the cafe as these will be directly beneath the new store.

If you know the library you might be wondering where exactly the store is going to go, because it looks like the building already has two storeys.  Actually the second floor is missing on the right hand-side.  The new store will fill the gap.

Our local contractor William Birch & Sons Ltd started on site six weeks ago on 6th January and put up a hoarding around the Phase 1 working area.

This part of the library is now strictly off limits without hard hats and high vis as heavy duty structural work is going on.  This morning I donned mine and tagged on to a tour with our Design Team to give you a sneaky peak behind the scenes.

Stripped of all the books and furniture the Children’s Library looks huge.  The story-telling space is now filled with scaffolding.  There were two skylights in the existing roof and one of the first tasks was to remove and fill these in so that the new storey can be built on top.  I say ‘built’ but the skeleton structure will actually be craned into place and then finished on site.  The big craning is due to take place in a few weeks time.

The second big job is to strengthen the steel supports so that the ground floor can take the weight of the new store.  The existing foundations were originally designed to take a second floor but archive stores need some extra support.  This is not only because of the mobile shelving but because the documents themselves are extremely heavy.  Anyone who has tried moving a filing cabinet full of papers will understand what I mean!  Once the new steels are installed the building will be able to take a weight equivalent to six regular storeys.

The builders are also taking this opportunity to investigate an existing problem with the library floor.  Over the last few years it has been buckling and lifting in places, suggesting there is moisture trying to escape.  During the Gateway work we will also be fixing this and an initial step is to establish a cause.  Cue lots of digging big holes!

As of today the building work is running to time.  This means that Phase 2 – craning on the store and installing the walls – will begin in two weeks time.  There will be a temporary closure of Library Square, and probably the Library itself, during this period because of the enormous crane in front of the building.  Once the structure is in place the new store will really start to feel real.  I will be back out with my camera as soon as there is something to see!

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