Under a new Librarian, the Library will be undergoing a major strategy to preserve its collection and highlight its importance to the wider community.
The RUSI Library of Military History has been an integral part of the organisation since 1831. It houses a unique collection of historic and rare books and makes an important contribution to the preservation of military history. Under a new Librarian, the Library will be undergoing a major strategy to preserve its collection and highlight its importance to the wider community.
24 October 2011 - The RUSI Library of Military History has a long and well respected history. Nonetheless all libraries need work and investment over time. During 2011 and 2012 we will be working on a number of strategic aims to help improve both the access to and the preservation of the collection. The important areas of our work will be preservation, access and marketing, and through these streams of work we hope to make it easier to use this truly unique collection.
Preservation
Inevitably all books will deteriorate over time and we have a responsibility to help slow the deterioration and protect books and paper for as long as we can. By cleaning, conserving and mending our books we will be helping to preserve them for future generations. We will also be implementing procedures such as pest monitoring and tracking the temperature and relative humidity in the Library. By doing this we will be providing ourselves with as much information as possible about the conditions in which our collection is stored in order to improve the chances of long term preservation.
Accessability
To make the collection more accessible we aim to introduce a whole range of initiatives including new signage, new notation on the books, a self-checkout system, alphabetisation, new catalogue records and indexing. All of these measures will help our users to access and make the most of unique resources.
This is a huge project but it will help to make this unique and special collection more accessible to all of our users.