Three-week library shut down to move collection to new Blenheim site

Library goers will be encouraged to take home extra books when it closes for three weeks to move the collection over to its new Blenheim site.

A soft launch has been planned for the opening of the new $20 million library and art gallery but an invitation has also been sent to the Prime Minister’s office to officially open the new building – expected to be in June.

Libraries manager Glenn Webster told the Marlborough District Council’s planning, finance and community committee on Tuesday that having people take out more books during the move, there would be a lighter workload to shift the collection to the new site.

A blessing of the new facility was planned this month, ahead of the three-week closure which was expected to start on April 23, the last day of school holidays.

Crown Movers, specialist library and archives movers, would begin the shift on April 26, Webster said.

It was planned for the new library art gallery to open with a “soft launch” on Friday, May 12.

Webster said they expected to welcome 30% more people as residents checked out the new space. Between July to December last year, the monthly average of visitors to the Blenheim Library was 13,223 people.

Marlborough Sounds ward councillor Barbara Faulls asked how they would accommodate “perhaps the older folk” who relied on going to the library every week to get their books.

Webster said they would be encouraging people to take extra books home.

“Obviously all of those books will have to come back, what we’ve found in the past when we’ve done this we’ve been swamped,” Webster said.

“But that’s fine, we will be encouraging people to come in, they’ll want to see our new facility. The message will be going out hard and clear that we are going to be closed for three weeks, and this is the opportunity.

“It was a bit like when we closed for Covid ... people just came and took armfuls, they went back to their car and then came and got another arm full.”

He said they would also encourage people to use their online services.

The council’s economic, community and support services manager Dean Heiford told councillors Marlborough mayor Nadine Taylor had invited the Prime Minister to officially open the library during the week of June 26.

“Sometime within that period is when we will officially open the library which of course will be a dawn blessing, and the unveiling of the name,” Heiford said.

The 3,600m2 library will house shared areas including meeting rooms, a foyer/reception, café, toilets, a multi-purpose education room and landscaped grounds.

The Government in 2020 announced it would cover $11 million of the project's $20m bill. The project was one of 150 to be approved as part of the Government's 'shovel ready' initiative, designed to boost the economy as the country recovered from the Covid-19 pandemic.

​Millennium Public Art Gallery director Cressida Bishop previously said the building’s climate-controlled gallery and storage spaces met the highest standards required for New Zealand public art galleries.

This would enable Marlborough to host exhibitions of rare and valuable works such as the Rita Angus survey exhibition, that the gallery had not previously been able to show.

Meanwhile, work on High and Wynen St to link the library and art gallery to the central business district continues.

Council projects and contracts manager Maighan Watson said in November the streetscape project, which included landscaping around the new library and art gallery building, would deliver a refreshed look.

It includes renewed footpath surfaces, a new access lane and road crossings, updated street furniture and revitalised garden beds in the High and Wynen Street areas. Stormwater services in Wynen Street was also being upgraded.

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