Dear Mersenne subscribers,

Dana Research Centre and Library

We sent a message in early 2014 to inform you about the closure of the Science Museum Library based in Imperial College and the move of our collections to the Museum’s Wroughton store. We also outlined our plans to open a new Research Centre at our South Kensington site and the need to acquire our own catalogue system.

We are delighted to inform you that our plans have borne fruit and that the splendid new Dana Research Centre and Library opened on Monday 9 November at its home at 165 Queens Gate, London SW7 5HD. The new library is more than we had hoped for, with a beautiful design by Coffey Architects that provides a relaxing and inspirational atmosphere for visitors to use our collection for research. 

The Library offers 18 reading desks and around 5,500 volumes of books and recent journals in the history and biography of science, technology and medicine and in museology. Readers will be able to consult selected archives and items from library collections transported from our stores in Wroughton. They can also access and print from our subscribed resources, which include large collections of digital resources. We have also acquired a new Library Management system, Koha, to enable access to our library catalogue and manage other services and our catalogue entries have been transferred from Imperial College’s system. You can access this at: https://smg.koha-ptfs.co.uk/.  Archives are also available from our new Archives catalogue, which will also launch in mid-November.

The Library is open 10:00-17:00 Monday to Friday and will be closed on Bank holidays and over the Christmas New Year period. For more information see our web page for the new library

The new Dana Research Centre and Library is a manifestation of the Museum’s strong commitment to research and scholarship, also visible in our Research & Public History Department based at the Centre, with its programme of AHRC-funded collaborative doctoral studentships and research projects and our successful Science Museum Group Journal.

The Dana Research Centre and Library will be formally opened during our inaugural conference on research in museums, 31 March to 2^nd April 2016, but we are open for business now; why not pay us a visit?

Please look out for Mersenne announcements about the Inaugural Conference.  

Yours sincerely

Tim Boon

Head of Research & Public History

 

Nick Wyatt 

Acting Head of Library & Archives                

 

Hadrian Ellory-van Dekker

Head of Collections and Chief Curator

 

 

Dana Research Centre and Library

Science Museum

165 Queen’s Gate

London SW7 5HD

Tim

Dr Tim Boon, Head of Research & Public History, The Science Museum,

Tel: 020 7942 4207; Mobile: 07949 517 646