Membership voice, November - December 2004
...a moving occasion
TWI Library and Information Services moved to the newly refurbished Alan Wells Building earlier this year.
It was formally opened on 7 July, by one of East Anglia's leading entrepreneurs, Michael Marshall, of the long-time Industrial Member company, Marshalls of Cambridge.
The Alan Wells building, completed in 1987, is a hexagonal, externally supported structure of carbon manganese steel tubulars, with aluminium and glass infill panels. As a result there are no internal pillars, an ideal space to house the library stock. The Library is on the ground floor of the building, with a quiet reading room and staff offices surrounding the Council Room upstairs.
TWI's Library is the largest collection of publications on welding and related technologies in the western world - the only comparable collection being at the EO Paton Welding Institute in Kiev.
To make the move, the Library was closed for a week, during which time approximately 800 crates of books were packed, transported across the site and unpacked in their new locations. As a result, we have been able to organise the stock more efficiently, and can offer members a more spacious and modern facility.
But that is not the end of the story. By the end of 2004 the complete Library stock of over 100,000 items, taking up approximately 1km of shelving, will be housed in one building for the first time. This will include the nationally important archive of joining related publications dating back to the early 1900s.
Information Services has been awarded a £50,000 grant by the UK Heritage Lottery Fund, part of which has been used to refurbish the basement of the Alan Wells building to house the archive.
As part of this lottery funded project the Library staff will be cataloguing material not previously recorded, and will be working with local schools and libraries to produce packages of information from the archive. They will also assist members of the public wishing to undertake research into industrial history. This work will, of course, benefit Industrial Members, as the entire archive will be available to them as well.
At the same time work is currently under way to complete new software for the production and searching of Weldasearch via the TWI website. Covering the world's published welding literature over the past 36 years, the database now contains over 185,000 abstracts. The database can be accessed via the TWI website or direct at www.weldasearch.com. You can already use the improved search system but if you have any problems call Sheila Thomas or Margaret Connell, or e-mail weldasearch@twi.co.uk
TWI Information Services has always been an important benefit offered to Industrial and WJS members. The staff can help you to access the entire collection of published items, including over 400 current journals, the collection of books, conference proceedings, patents, standards reports, reference works and product literature, and they can help you to source the 58 years' worth of information produced by TWI. The library also provides a rapid document delivery service from the items held in stock.
We would like to invite you to contact us the next time you have a joining related enquiry and to call in to the library on your next visit to Abington.
Linda Dumper - Library Manager
e-mail: linda.dumper@twi.co.uk
