During the Autumn of 2024, the Hartley Library Transformation (HLT) Project Team collaborated with our Architects and external consulting team through the RIBA 1 initial feasibility stage of the project. Work undertaken included surveys of the building and consultations with internal stakeholders.
Our Estates team are currently working with Hawkins Brown on the University of Southampton’s wider Estates Master Plan. This includes the transformational refurbishment of the Hartley Library. A Strategic Outline Business Case, detailing options for changes to the internal spaces, is currently working through our robust governance structures.
We have also been consulting with our users of the Hartley Library and conducted a survey over two weeks in November/December 2024. We wanted to understand more about what our users would like from a refurbished Hartley Library and to ask what spaces they use currently. We have had a good response and are currently analysing the results.
Our Collections Development & Discovery (CD&D) project, our enabling project for the Hartley Library Transformation project, is now ending, and has addressed some of the challenges we had with our print collections at Hartley Library. Close to 200,000 print books have been rehomed in an archive-quality, off-site store which can be accessed via our click and collect service. The University’s heritage and higher use collections are now more prominent. In addition, we have significantly improved over 5,000 library catalogue records and established more consistent classification across the collection. This means that books are easier to find using our online Library Search function, and easier to locate on the shelf.
Word cloud developed from survey answers to "What three words would you use to describe the Hartley Library as you would like to see it?"