In 1902, the Scottish born philanthropist, Andrew Carnegie, offered £10,000 for the building of a public library in the southern half of the Metropolitan Borough of Hammersmith. This offer was gratefully accepted and a site was chosen in Brook Green (now Shepherds bush Road) for the new building.
Andrew Carnegie
The building is now undergoing a £2.7million refurbishment both to preserve Carnegie’s legacy and to provide our customer’s with a service fit for the 21st Century.
Preparing the move from Hammersmith Library was a very big task. Before we could move out we had to move the crates in.
800 crates were used to pack away 22,000 items
There was a lot of stock to shift from the adult library…….
Hammersmith Library
…….and the Children’s library.
Hammersmith Children’s Library
Upstairs the study room had to cleared of all the computers, tables and chairs.
PCs to Go
The stock librarian said there was no sitting down on the job, but she was clearly lying!
Ann Cooper (Area Manager) and Elin Jones (Stock Librarian)
It was hard work!!!!!
All the stock was boxed up and ready to move……
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- Lending Cleared
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- Packed Crates on the Lending floor
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- Len Duffy (Site Officer) loves his job!
And then the library was empty…..
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- Hammersmith Library Ground Floor – Empty shelves
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- Hammersmith Library Ground Floor
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- Hammersmith Children’s Library – All packed up
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- Hammersmith Library Study Room – All Cleared
How did Len get it all in his van!!!!
The van’s ready to go
Most of our stock and furniture has gone into storage or been assimilated in to our other libraries. Our most popular items have been moved to the Hammersmith Temporary Library at 181 Kings Street.
Temporary Library – 181 Kings Street
Open for business
Keep reading this blog next week for “Checking in” and our move to 181…..
Nick Baker, Systems Librarian
by Nick Baker, Systems Librarian
H&F Libraries and Archives 
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