Building Works

If you’ve used the Oriental Institute Library over this Summer Vacation, you’ve probably noticed all the building works. A large piece of our collection has been moved to new shelving, a temporary cabin has been set up, and there’s been lots of noise coming from the cabin. LOTS of noise- our supply of earplugs has proved extremely popular!

So why’s it been going on? What’s happening? Basically, it’s all due to the huge revamp of the Ashmolean Museum, behind our library. Most of the noise has been the builders working on finishing off the Museum, ready for their big re-opening on the 7th November. Once it’s finished, they’ll have double the existing gallery space plus better facilities for education and conservation.

See this page for more details of their big project: http://www.ashmolean.org/transforming/index.php

Sadly, the expansion of the Ashmolean meant that the Oriental Institute’s fire escape wasn’t usable any more. And after studying all the options, it became apparent that the new fire escape had to go through our Library’s ceiling. So builders took down some of our shelving, and cut a neat hole down from the floor above.

The works have been going well so far. The staircase itself is now in position, coming down through the ceiling. The final stages will be to build a box around the bottom of stairs, and then to plaster the box. Hopefully this’ll all be done in time for the start of term…

Building Works
Building Works

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