Further to the update we provided in June, access to
some of the collection items held at the Library's Boston Spa site
continues to be restricted following the discovery of small traces of
asbestos in some areas.
All air sampling tests have found there to be no health
risk - however, the Library continues to take sensible and
responsible precautions to ensure the health and safety of Readers,
users and staff, in full compliance with the very strict health and
safety regulations applying to the management of asbestos.
Although some areas of the Boston Spa site remain
closed, leading to unavailability of items, a major programme of
asbestos removal and management has been ongoing since February. Our
priority has been to get the higher use collection items back in
service as quickly as possible.
The cleaning of 11.5km of the most heavily used
current serials stock (1985-present), which accounts for 55% of
the affected document supply orders, was completed at the end of May.
Work on cleaning the current monographs stock, the next most heavily
used content, will be completed in early September. The bulk of the
programme as a whole is expected to be completed by the end of 2011,
although some low use items will continue to be affected into next
year.
As an interim solution, we have introduced a number of
initiatives to complete customer orders from alternative sources - in
particular fulfilling requests from e-journal resources where
licences for document supply are held, and making greater use of
duplicates in our London stock.
We wish to thank customers for their continuing patience
while we deal with this substantial challenge - please be assured
that we are making every effort to make stock from the affected areas
available again as soon as possible.
Please cascade this information to colleagues as
appropriate. Please also continue placing orders as usual, and you
will be informed if you need to reapply for your requested item at a
later date.
If you have any questions or concerns please contact the
British Library Customer Services Department: customer-services@bl.uk
+44 (0)1937 546060
