4. Moving the Museum Library as part of the Dinosaurs
in Their Time Project
With the decision to expand Dinosaur Hall, discussions concerning
the relocation of the Museum Library began in earnest with the
E. Verner Johnson and Associates of Boston and Burt Hill Kosar
Rittlemann Associates of Pittsburgh in 2003. The Library was among
the first of the Museum’s
departments to move to accommodate the Dinosaurs in Their Time exhibition as the Library occupied the space between the existing
Dinosaur
Hall and the service courtyard that was to be floored over to provide
the expansion space.
As plans for the renovation of the building progressed, it was decided that two departmental libraries, those in the section of Birds and the section of Amphibians and Reptiles, would be merged into the central Museum Library. As there was not room to move those collections into the existing Library space, these collections were scheduled for several “shuffle moves,” until they could move into the Library’s new space.
The first departmental collection to move was the Section of Birds Library, originally housed across the hall from the Birds departmental offices on the 3rd floor. In December 2004, this collection was loaded onto book trucks, so that the shelves could be disassembled, then re-assembled in a space cleared in the Amphibians and Reptiles office. While the resultant aisles were narrow and the light poor, the collections were still accessible to the Library Staff and other users.
