Cool strategy for precious pieces
THERE was some clever planning to be done when it came to replacing the National Library’s many climate-control and other systems during its 21⁄ year revamp.
While most of the library’s high-value items were taken out and stored off-site, much of the collection remained in the building during the renovations as it would have been too expensive to move everything into temporary storage.
Chris Dunlop, technical director for Beca engineering consultants which organised the replacing of the building’s services such as the ventilation, heating, security and plumbing work, said thousands of items were boxed, wrapped and sealed and stayed in the library while work went on around them.
Mr Dunlop says that meant Beca had to work out how all the replacement systems could be installed while keeping all the environment systems ‘‘ticking over’’ to preserve the collections.
‘‘While the main cooling plant was being replaced there were temporary systems put in place to keep the collections under proper environmental controls. And the collections were moved around the building as different parts of the project were worked on.
‘‘So there was quite a lot of risk to manage to prevent the collections being damaged.’’
Another example is that the main switchboard of the building had to be replaced. A temporary generator on the street outside the building provided power while the switchboard was being replaced.
Power was a vital part of the project, as heating and air conditioning are critical parts of the library’s preservation programme.
‘‘They’ve got rooms that range from a -29 degrees Celsius cold room, there’s a two-degree room and then there’s a whole bunch of rooms that are kept at around 13 or 14 degrees.
‘‘So things like very old film are very cold, and then various types of paper need to be stored at a range of different conditions, depending on what sort of paper it is, how old it is and all that sort of thing.’’
Beca previously had worked on the Singapore National Library and other New Zealand libraries but this had its own challenges and rewards.
‘‘One of the highlights was just being involved in this project. The National Library is the custodian of New Zealand’s documentary heritage so just being part of that was quite a buzz. There was a real sense of pride in being able to look after our national heritage.’’
Mr Dunlop says it was also a challenge to engineer the controlled environment areas.
‘‘The conditions the documents need to be stored in have a very tight tolerance, so the range of allowable temperature and humidity variability is very small.’’
This can be just 1deg variations, and only about 5 per cent fluctuations in humidity.
Beca also engineered backup systems to keep everything safe in the event of power cuts.
‘‘The site’s got generator backup and most of the rooms have standby plants so if one fails, another one [will] kick in.’’
The building extends underground for two levels, larger than the building itself and should provide for plenty of quality storage for years to come.