If you haven’t come across them already, there’s a heap of news stories out today about Sammy Ofer’s £20m donation to the Museum towards a major new wing, which will include a new archive and library research facility.
This is very exciting news for us here in the Caird Library, as it will mean improved access to our collections and better storage too.
Times Online and the BBC both have stories, and so does Lloyds List (sign up for a free trial if you can’t read the full article).
Renee (Digital Resources Librarian)

The Caird Library has revised its opening hours, to start the week beginning Monday 14 April 2008.
The Reading Room will now be open Tuesday to Saturday, and be closed on Sundays and Mondays. The new opening hours are Tuesday-Friday 10.00-16.45, and Saturday (open by appointment only) 10.00-13.00, 14.00-16.45.
Why have we made this change? The National Maritime Museum is planning a new Research Centre, part of a multi-million pound project to enhance access to the paper-based collections at Greenwich. All Archive and Library staff are involved in preparing for this exciting new resource, and we need to reduce public hours so that quality of service isn’t compromised while we do this.
Some key things that we’re working on are: a new and improved online manuscripts catalogue, new and exciting ways to tell archive stories online, a new digital imaging service, improving the quality of our archival cataloguing and the storage of the collections.
The E-Library (tel. 020 78312 6516) will continue to open 7 days a week 10.00-16.45 (Saturday and Sunday open 10.00-13.00, 14.00-16.45).
The change in opening hours will continue from Monday 14 April 2008 until further notice.
For further information, please contact the E-Library on 020 8312 6516.
Renee (Digital Resources Librarian)

The National Maritime Museum will host a three-day conference entitled “Richard Hakluyt (c. 1552-1616): life, times, legacy” from Thursday 15 May – Saturday 17 May 2008. This international interdisciplinary conference is jointly organized by the National Maritime Museum, The Centre for Travel Writing Studies, Nottingham Trent University and the National University of Ireland, Galway. Drawing together Hakluyt scholars and Renaissance travel writing experts, the conference will seek to contextualize the life, times, and legacy of Hakluyt.
Richard Hakluyt (c.1552-1616) collected, edited, and published numerous Elizabethan discovery and adventure narratives throughout his lifetime. His legacy lives on today in the prodigious Hakluyt Society, founded in 1846, which continues to regularly publish works relating to travel, voyages, and geographical and cultural discovery.
If you are attending the conference or are interested in any of the works of Richard Hakluyt or the Hakluyt Society why not pay a visit to the Caird Library? We hold several rare copies of Richard Hakluyt’s works including “Hakluyt’s collection of the early voyages, travels, and discoveries, of the English nation” and a facsimile copy of “Divers voyages touching the discoverie of America…”. We also hold more than two hundred works published by the Hakluyt Society, from the first series, volume 1 (published 1846) “The observations of Sir Richard Hawkins in his voyage into the South Sea in the year 1593” to the third series, volume 17 (published 2006) “The Guiana travels of Robert Schomburgk, 1835-1844 : volume 2 : the boundary survey 1840-1844“.
Gary (Assistant Librarian)

The Library will be closed on the following days over the Easter bank holiday:

• Good Friday
• Saturday
• Easter Monday

The E-Library will also be closed on Saturday and Sunday.
See you after the break!

Renee (Digital Resources Librarian)

Earlier today an E-Library visitor informed me that campaigners are petitioning the House of Commons for a posthumous pardon to be granted to Admiral John Byng. Byng was excecuted on 14 March 1757 on the quarterdeck of his own flagship for failing to prevent the French from capturing Port Mahon in Minorca.
You can read more in Collections Online, and both the Guardian and Reuters have stories on the petition and its likely success. And if you’d like to read contemporary accounts, both published and manuscript, do visit us here at the Caird Library.
And on a completely different quarterdeck, this weekend the HMS Belfast is celebrating 70 years since its first launch. The ceremony on Saturday is a private Naval affair, however there is a special breakfast on the 17th for anyone who is also celebrating their 70th birthday that day!
Renee (Digital Resources Librarian)

In the last two weeks of February the Reading Room was closed while the library and manuscripts teams carried out our annual audit and completed a reorganisation project in our offsite book store. I was part of the team working in the store, which involved putting around 15,000 books into correct shelf number order. We also cleaned and resized all the shelves so that we could seperate small books from folios.
Here’s some photos to give you a feel for what we did.

Modelling the backpack vacuum cleaner.

A big pile of cardboard boxes that we used for temporarily storing books.

Tables filled with books sorted into number order.

The newly clean shelves.
Renee (Digital Resources Librarian)

March’s item of the month is a series of letters discovered by Martin during his ongoing project to catalogue the collection of Admiral Sir Edward Pellew.
Pellew was commander in chief of the Royal Navy ships stationed in the Mediterranean between 1811 and 1814. The letters concern the transport of a series of marble statues for Lord Elgin, (British Minster to the Ottoman Empire) and taken to Britain in the early nineteenth century. As Commander in Chief of this station, it fell to Pellew to provide a ship to actually transport the statues during wartime from Greece to England.
You can read the full item of the month, and see images of the letters themselves, on the main museum website.
Renee (Digital Resources Librarian)