Library Interim Arrangements

During last night's Executive, I mentioned the new interim arrangements for both the Kilburn and Willesden Green Library rebuilds. 

The nature of the interim arrangements at Willesden were a major concern at an earlier stage of the process. We are sticking to our view that location is of prime importance in terms of attracting people to the library.  Hence, we had already announced that we would be using the Grange Road office literally across the road.  We can now make public that we will also be using the Lewinson Centre, which is on Willesden High Road.  This should allow Willesden to have an interim service far superior to the one Harlesden Library had during its rebuild.

Of course, Willesden is also a short bus ride on the 206 from Kilburn Library.  Thus, Kilburn Library will be able to take people during the Willesden construction period, and Willesden will be able to accomodate former Kilburn users during the Kilburn refurbishment.  For study space, we will also be using the Granville Centre in South Kilburn during the Kilburn Library refurbishment.  This ties in well with our objective of reaching out to South Kilburn, which was one of the key justifications for choosing the Kilburn Library over the former libraries at Neasden and Preston.  Less conventionally, the Libraries team have organised a number of outreach events in the Salusbury Road area.  It will be interesting to see how effective they are.

Whilst we had to do some construction work at Kilburn in any case, the work in the Summer will be more extensive than cited in the report last April.  It includes replacing the electrics (allowing for more PCs), a new boiler (reducing carbon emissions), new flooring, and a complete redesign of the library area.