I've clicked through to the NMM blog link, but can't find your comments there Tony. Would it be possible to post them here, as I have a number of questions about this development too?
Here is the current message on the NMM website to explain the transformation taking place at the museum:
http://www.nmm.ac.uk/server/show/ConWebDoc.22817
Digesting the practical realities of the change programme announced a couple of weeks ago (and what very short notice it was), the prospect of the world's finest repository of maritime knowledge being off limits for a period of time is a sudden blow. Personally, it coincides with one project just moving into film development, and longer term it would certainly impact on further research. I'm sure many others will be affected by the closure, but the overarching need to improve user facilities and storage of artifacts is understandable and compelling.
A link to view the most recent NMM Annual Report and Accounts is here:
http://www.official-documents.gov.uk/do ... 3/0633.asp
Items 3.1 (page 4) and SP II (page 19) are particularly relevant, and I wish the NMM Godspeed in getting through this project without a single hitch or delay.
However, the very serious reduction in public access to the Caird Library, when service eventually resumes, is difficult to understand. Why is it, that the (10am - 4:45pm) weekday opening times are to be cut by a significant 40%, with a further 75% reduction on Saturdays, leaving a total of 20 hours access per week? And why is it that this state of affairs seems set to continue for up to four years or more, until the high profile launch of the Cultural Olympiad in 2012?
Incidentally, the original NMM website announcement suggests that this is a permanent change, although by the message of Eleanor Gawne - Head of the Archive and Library - it may mean that reduced access will continue until 2012. I'm not clear on this bit?
At the Caird Library, where all historical paper archives must be laboriously transcribed by hand, if access is restricted to 20 hours each week, the prospect for visitors travelling great distances to Greenwich to undertake blocks of research within a small window of opportunity is not a welcome one. It's difficult enough as it is now.
I'm sorry, but without more clarity, I'm struggling to empathise with this interim action plan, and cannot equate such a significant loss of access, for such a long period of time, with the words used in the Director's personal message: 'highly accessible archives' and 'library will be greatly enhanced.'
Any progress that limits access to our great national libraries and archives - by prior appointment - to visitors in person only - for 20 hours a week - for years or for ever - is progress that I would seriously question.
I would urge the NMM, if at all humanly possible, to reach out and reconsider the planned reduction of open access to the Caird Library's unique archives in this way. And if at all possible to extend, enhance and improve these unique and amazing resources for everyone in the run up to London 2012 - as well as afterwards. Or at the very least be clear to users - at the outset and with plenty of notice - why they cannot.