Seating

Much of the office furniture for the library will be brought over from the current library, as will most of the chairs and tables we use in public spaces. Additional furniture has also been ordered for these areas and the first deliveries are expected soon.

We have several distinct areas of the library that we want to furnish differently to the rest. Four companies were asked to submit their proposals for these areas and we spent some time discussing the designs today. We like two of the proposals in particular but will need some further information before we decide between them. The brief we gave to the companies was to suggest funky seating in the youth area, some eye-catching seating in the window area above the entrance, occassional seats to place around the library and some comfortable tub style armchairs and café tables with chairs in on the ground floor. We've dubbed the small atrium area on the ground floor as the Lolfa as it will be a comfortable place to read a newspaper or sit and chat. We will avoid calling it Y Lolfa so as not to confuse it with the well known Welsh publisher of the same name.

One of our most important tools in recent months has been a collection of various printed RAL colour charts which we guard jealously. Everything in the library has a RAL colour and the charts and colour swatches are helping us decide on colour schemes for various parts of the building.

Audio-visual

Sandra and Sian

We will have a television, DVD player and PlayStation in both the children and youth areas. We want to be able to control all this equipment from the library counter, along with a couple of listening posts and an LCD information screen. We’ve installed ample power and data points and also provided TV connections to an aerial on the roof. To operate all the equipment from a central point we will need very little extra cabling, some software and a bit of expert assistance. We've talked to Blackbox-av to provide this for us. They have experience of setting up interactive museum and library displays so they should have no problem supplying what we want. We met them for the second time at the library today and look forward to the work starting.

End of First Removals

Most of the stock we want to move into the basement has now been moved. The last materials to be transported were the maps, old newspapers and photographs brought over from the squash court store. Though all of this material is in the basement, it is mostly in boxes and it will take several weeks to organise and shelve.

Removals have now ended for the time being until the temporary library closes. It has taken 8 days to remove and mostly shleve about 7000 books and other items of stock. The rest of the building is still empty. In the weeks ahead we'll have to move much of the present furniture, dismantle and erect shelving, setup 80 PCs and move over 70,000 books.

Staff Tours

Discarded computer packaging

IT staff were in the building much of the day testing the network, setting up phones and preparing to set-up the first PC.

Most Barry Library staff have been in the library at least once during the building period or in the weeks before completion. Very few branch library staff have had this opportunity so the doors were flung open to staff who wanted to visit this evening. First impressions were unanimously good.

We'll be calling on lots of library staff to help out in the coming weeks and some have already started.

Central Park

Library courtyard and Central Park

The gates of Central Park were opened for the first time this morning and some children tried out the swings on their way to school. The park was full of children after school and at 7pm there were still about 50 children of all ages in the park, some using the equipment, some playing on the basketball court and others rolling down the terraces.

Work continued on moving stock into the library today. A workroom has been setup in the basement for staff to start processing new stock and making it shelf ready.

A few samples of furniture have arrived for the public areas of the library. We will need several styles of chairs and tables and will have to choose colours and finishes in the next few weeks.

The press had a tour of the library last Friday and there was some coverage in the Echo and Barry & District News.

End of First Week

Basement

At the end of our first week of removals the library basement is starting to fill up. Much of the reserve stock of books has been shelved. Most of the new stock has been moved into the library and a good proportion of it has also been shelved. Work has also begun on clearing the store we keep at a squash court at Barry Leisure Centre. This store is next to the temporary library and contains mostly books, marketing materials, stationery and local studies materials.

King Square Opens

The barricades came down around King Square at the front of the library today. The square has been off limits for the last 18 months and it took some time today before shoppers on Holton Road could quite believe they could walk over the square again.

Work continued on transporting books from the reserve stock to the basement. Work also began on moving new stock from the store in Sully. New books, CDs, DVDs and talking books have been bought over the past year and stored ready for the new library. They will be shelved in the basement until shelving is erected in the library in November.