The heritage council is located in Kilkenny, here 12 heritage officers call the Bishops Palace home. This home is very impressive and more so is the library.
As it is a very old building the library is a old room which sits between the Chairman's office and the Chief Executive's office so it's importance is already noted.
The library has many uses, mostly for meetings as it is the warmest room in the building. The facilities are excellent with plenty of electrical points and access to internet, and a TV for conference calls.
My main aim with the library is to organise the layout in a way that the information contained on the shelves is easily and quickly accessible by each heritage officer.
In addition to this I need to make sure all the information contained in the library meets all these heritage officers daily information needs.
Many challenges face what I have outlined above, there is no more space on the shelves & most of the material has been there 10 years or more and because of this there are multiple boxes in the library with what seems like newer material.
The diverse information needs of the heritage officers is apparent to me within the first few weeks of starting, and to get an idea of the content of heritage I find I am having lots of overlapping conversations!
The demand on the heritage officers time is high, they cover the entire country so there maybe days when they don't get to the office, and that means I don't get to them.
As I move my way through the material it becomes familiar to me. Many of the projects that the heritage council have worked on have been high profile cases, and after a bit of research I start my weeding process with bundles and bundles of material for assessment.
It is a long process, mostly to give the time to other projects that have come my way. It is immensely rewarding to see the library take shape, I can see it even if all the heritage officers see are empty shelves!
To reflect on accomplishments so far keeps me motivated!
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