Index

Meg has been working away over the past few months to create a digital copy of our Archive index. We'd like to say a huge thank you to her, for all her hard work to make this information available. You'll now be able to look at and download the Archive Index on the blog here, just click on the 'Archive Index' tab under the banner at the top of this page and you'll find the link to the Archive index PDF. Thanks again Meg.

EXHIBITION!

Glyn and Alan have been toiling away to put together a fantastic exhibition to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the voyage of the Rosebud to Westminster in 1937.

The crew of the Rosebud carried a petition from the people of Newlyn Town, in an atempt to save fishermens' cottages from wholesale demolition by the Penzance Council under their interpretation of the Housing Acts 1925 - 1935. You can find out a little more about this history here, but for a more insightful look, come and see the exhibition in the library, featuring photographs, a bit of the keel, and a model of the Rosebud.

The exhibition runs between 17th and 27th October in the Reading Room at the library.
We look forward to seeing you here!

The Balcony and Navy Inn at Newlyn Town, demolished by Penzance Borough Council in 1939

We would like to say a big "THANK YOU!" to everyone who came along to our annual Book and Postcard Fair at St John's Hall last week. You all helped to raise £1580 for the library, for which we and all our members are really grateful.

It was an early start for the first team on site - 7:45am - Annabelle, Mike and Alan were outside St. John's hall ready to start unloading, preparing, directing stallholders, dishing out floats and all else the day entails. As well as the stallholders and the excellent team of willing volunteers (thank you all), we had over 450 visitors, who shopped, browsed, and partook of the raffle in the hall, and ate & drank in the cafe. The event was busy all day, with Jenni sat stoically in the entrance hall collecting donations (which were up on last years by a pretty penny).  Thank you all once again for a brilliant day - hall is booked again for the same time next year! Thanks for the photographs Maike.

Annual Book Fair

Come one come all! The Morrab Library Book + Postcard fair 2012 is this Saturday. There'll be books galore: Old + new, from cheap paperbacks to collectable first editions. There will also be food + drink, a raffle and lots of vintage and collectable postcards. Pass the details on to all your pals and anyone you think will be interested. See you Saturday!

P L E A S E   C A N   Y O U   H E L P ?

On Saturday 22^nd September, we’re holding our annual book & postcard fair at St John’s Hall. This event raises money for the library, through renting stalls and selling books, and is a good opportunity for us to encourage new members to join. We also rasie funds by selling refreshments on the day.

F O O D

Can you help by supplying us with some sweet or savoury snacks? We have the sandwiches covered, but anything else would be much appreciated. If you are able to help out, please pop in to the library and let us know or comment on this post telling us your name and what sort of dish you are bringing. Then just bring it in to St John's Hall on Saturday morning (22nd Setember.) Thank you very much.

H E L P

We’re also keen to recruit any volunteers to help on the day – if you could spare an hour to do a bit of washing up or serving then we’d be very grateful. Please see Annabelle or Alex at the desk for details on this. Thank you!

Building update # 03

It's been a while, so we thought we'd better update everyone on progress with the building work... 

From our position on this side of the fence, it appears there's just a massive hole. There is a massive hole, but it's what's going on inside the hole (the bits we can't see) that is of great importance, and where work has really been moving on. We had a meeting with the council and the contractors yesterday, and heard all about the tricky, risky, dangerous and hugely important business of underpinning the existing building. According to TEC, this part of the work has been challenging - I won't go into the technical details as they were plentiful and extensive - suffice to say: It's complicated, but it's also 'well in hand'. The TEC team have been friendly, accommodating professional and willing to make every effort to work with the library and we are very grateful. It appears that after a slight delay, things are forging ahead, and that the team should soon be able to move out into the 'new' area, which will mean much faster and easier working conditions. 

We have been given a timetable, but for the next fortnight (while the underpinning next to the building is still ongoing) it is in flux. After this time, we should know more about timings and things will become a lot more predictable. In the meantime, we know for certain that the library will have to close to members for approximately four weeks (an incredibly short time really considering what's planned) at some point while the old and new buildings are 'connected up', but we don't know precisely when this four week closure will be. (Currently looking like some time in November but we aren't making promises). We will also, unfortunately need to cancel many of our regular autumn and winter events, as until the new building is complete, we will be running on limited capacity, movement between areas of the library, and access. But we will update you with details of this as soon as they're all worked out. Once again, we apologise for any inconvenience caused, but hope you understand and share our 'short-term pain for long-term gain' outlook. 

Also of note: The builders found a secret tunnel! A corridor running all the way around the building, thought perhaps to have been installed to keep the building dry and free from damp, but we think a smuggling tunnel sounds more exciting. See picture below.

Acquisitions

While the Archive is out of action due to extension work, John Simmonds (archivist supreme) has joined Annabelle in cataloguing donations + new purchases for the collection. Double man/woman power on this task means we've all been one big cataloguing machine for the past couple of weeks, adding no less than one hundred and thirteen books into stock (and completing all the date labelling, spine labelling, card typing etc. that goes with it). Thus the acquisitions list for July is a long one...

To View the full list click here >>   Morrab Library Acquisitions // July 2012

PZ LIT FEST

Just a short, and slightly overdue post to say how much we all enjoyed hosting events for the Penzance Literary Festival last week. It was super to see the library full of people and the talks and other events we hosted were interesting and inspiring. Thanks to all who came and listened, who delivered talks and showed lovely pictures and who volunteered sitting on the door taking tickets - full round up and requests for feedback available through the lit fest's website: http://penzance-literary-festival.org.uk/

Building Update # 02

We're now in week four of serious work on our extension and things are moving quickly. The right hand side of the building is now fully sealed off on the ground and lower floor, and the former downstairs loo has disappeared completely.  At least five skips have been filled and replaced with empty ones, only to be filled again, (and that's just what we've seen). The railings have been removed, the Camellia and Cannon have been uprooted and moved to new spots in the gardens, and there's a huge hole in front of the building which was concreted on Friday. As you can tell from this 'update' we don't know the ins and outs or techical details of the work, but can only tell you how we're experienceing the build and we're very impressed with the work and workers (especially the skilful and unbelievable lifting of a massive skip-full of granite onto the back of a lorry which we witnessed while having lunch outside on Tuesday). Glyn and Bob have been sneaking in and photographing progress, a glimpse of which can be seen below...

Building work update # 01

Work on our much anticipated extension has been under way for a few weeks now, and so far all seems to be going according to plan. The electricians have been busy and the fenced off construction area now houses a pair of smart site offices. Plenty of other work has been going on, in, under and behind the scenes, and we spent yesterday making preparations to ensure nothing in the present library building comes to harm amidst the construction. Unfortunately, this means that some areas of the library will be out of bounds for a while. We used all the man and woman power we could muster yesterday (thank you to all the helpers) and moved every last book out of the Jenner Room and into safe keeping downstairs. Some much used reference books from this part of the collection have been re-housed in the Reading Room, but the majority of our Cornish collection is now in storage.  So, from now until mid-August, there will be no access to the following rooms: Jenner Room, Newspaper Archive, Archive Room & Duplicate Room. While we understand this is likely to be a potential problem for some of our members and visitors who use these particular parts of the library's collection, we hope you can understand that the few months of disruption will be worth it when the building is complete, and thank you for your patience.