UPDATE: Construction work at Dr Williams’s Library during 2021 and 2022

It has been frustrating and of concern to both the staff of the Library and its trustees that the timetable for the much needed redevelopment of the Library has proved impossible to adhere to, and a new timetable for change cannot yet be made definitive. In the interim staff have put in a great deal of work in ensuring that the Library is open for business, albeit with many restrictions, through the establishment of our “outstation” at Brixton. We hope that Readers, Friends and other users will continue to show the patience and forbearance they have evidenced to date. The reward will be a Library with facilities for the collections, staff and users that meets the highest standards and will be “fit-for-purpose” for many years to come.

The delays in commencing a programme of work that is the largest, in scale and complexity, in the history of the Library, have been multiple. The complexity of the work to be carried out, effecting every part of the Library’s historic but aging building, has taken many months to agree. This is especially true of the structural work required to make the building not only structurally sound but also fitted with replaced and enhanced services through every room and floor. This made the submission of our planning application to the London Borough of Camden especially onerous and time consuming, and the process of obtaining the necessary consents is proving protracted, and causing one of the principle factors delaying the commencement of work. On top of this the Corvid 19 pandemic has, and is still, causing considerable delay to the project. Nevertheless, staff and trustees are continue to working to a common aim, even if its achievement takes longer than any of us could have desired.

William Featherstone

For further details please contact the Director, Dr David Wykes

14 Gordon Square, London, WC1H 0AR

director@dwl.ac.uk