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University Libraries

May 24 2012

Visiting the National Archives in Bruges

Posted byNancy E. KraftPosted inBook & paper conservation, Community, outreach, education, and events, Intergovernmental Oceanographic Data and Information Exchange (UNESCO, IOC), Materials, equipment and procedures

Wednesday, May 23, 2012

OTA students listening to Archivist Luc Janssens in the new facility Today we visited the National Archives in Bruges at their old facility and the new facility that they will move into this August. Archivist Luc Janssens talked about how he organized the archives collection by size in order to maximize the shelving space. There are four different height and width sizes of shelving. He also mapped the collection areas on an architectural floor plan so that the movers can move the boxes and shelve them for him. He has to very careful that the boxes get on the correct shelf so he can find the boxes back again.New compact shelving in the new buildingBoxes are organized by size
The depth of the firewall can be seen over the head of the architect leaning against the firewall
In order to reduce the chances of fire getting into the archive collections, he requested that a fire wall be built that will withstand fire for one hour. The depth of the fire wall can be seen behind the architects who came to visit with us during the tour of the new facility.

Luc also should us an example of safely displaying a book that needs special handling. Each book that needed special support was set out on a pillow.
A large book is resting on a pillow