What's it like to be the man who said 'yes' to packing up and moving one of the country's biggest libraries? We asked Harrow Green, the relocation experts who are doing the job, to give us the inside information. Most of us in our lifetime will move house several times. Even with careful forward planning it's often one of life's more stressful experiences. Somehow there's always more to pack than you thought, not less - and which chest did we put the teapot in?
So imagine the task of packing, moving, storing and then moving out of store into the new library more than a million books plus stacks of newspapers, archives, and historical collections. But Harrow Green, the City Council's appointed contractor for this major move, are undaunted - cool, calm and business-like even when measuring up the 4,000 linear metres of archives and 36,000 linear metres of book shelves (about 25 miles of shelving in total). They've done it before. They moved the John Rylands University Library in Manchester, and they helped relocate the Liverpool Museums to their new site - and that meant moving everything from seashells to a ship's propeller.
How do you handle Handel?
The challenge for Harrow Green lies in much more than just the sheer volume. Manchester has a lot of rare and valuable material in the library collections that needs special handling and temperature controlled secure storage. About 44,000 books were published before 1850, with several thousand dating from the 17th and 18th centuries - even including some of the earliest printed books from the 1400's. And of course there are manuscripts, playbills, periodicals, tracts, maps, photographs, microfilm - and the internationally renowned Henry Watson Music Library which includes original Handel manuscripts.
'We are making use of the Deepstore salt mines in Cheshire for the most important material,' says John Lord, manager of the Manchester office, who is leading the Harrow Green team throughout the project. 'It's secure, with even temperature and humidity. Other material is going into the temporary lending library at Elliot House in Deansgate, to the County Record Office and into warehouse storage. Some individual items need special handling but, because we have specific methodologies for museums and libraries, and a lot of experience of similar projects, our team knows how to wrap and pack each book or collection safely and securely while ensuring we know exactly where every single item is located.
'Everything needs to be packed in sequence, each box and each pallet labelled so that when we come to take material out of store we know exactly where it is to go, eventually onto which shelf. Much of the material in store is electronically barcoded so that individual items can be retrieved from store if they are needed.'
How big a job is this? 'It's a big, big job, possibly one of the biggest moves since we moved the British Library into St Pancras. There'll be up to 30 people working on the move at any one time. If you ask me how we'll move everything with only those tiny lifts at the Central Library, my only answer is - we'll just have to work harder. We're used to it. You don't expect the same conditions in a historic building as you might in a modern office block.'
Is there a secret to a successful move? 'Well, it's not exactly a secret, more like common sense, but common sense applied rigorously and consistently. It's all in the planning. I think of this move like a child's giant puzzle, where every piece will fit if you go about it the right way.'
But it isn't child's play. So much has to go right that we are pleased to know the move is in safe and expert.
