Annual Report 2001-2002 - Cambridge University Library ...

support services & accommodationThe opening of the north-west corner extension wasgreeted with relief by many who have had to put upwith cramped accommodation for two years or more.The new reading rooms and offices generally receivedacclaim from both staff and readers once the teethingtroubles had been resolved. The PhotographyDepartment seem to have suffered most from suchproblems, perhaps because their requirements are moreexacting than most.The relocation of staff and services placed a greatburden on the General and Technical Maintenancestaff, who had to organise and carry out the physicalmoves. This pressure was compounded by thedemands of the building work on the south-westcorner, and by the continuing work on fire precautionsbeing undertaken by contractors working for theUniversity’s Estate Management and Building Service(EMBS). The new glass fire-doors in the maincorridors, the installation of which was awaited withsome trepidation because of their feared visual impact,are in fact relatively unobtrusive and certainly notoffensive even to the most ardent Gilbert Scott fan.There were major problems with the fire alarms,leading to unnecessary evacuations of the building andcomplaints from the Fire Service. The agreement ofEMBS to fund, as a matter of urgency, the merging ofthe different fire alarm systems, came as a great relief,especially to those staff expected, in an emergency, tobe able to interpret the sometimes contradictorymessages from the various panels.The problems with the University’s financialsystem, now called CUFS, have continued, though at aless acute level than in the previous year. Someimprovements have undoubtedly been made toreliability and speed but some modules remainunacceptably slow and cumbersome. This, combinedwith the disturbance caused by the relocation of thedepartment, led to a significant loss of production inthe Photography Department, and thus to a reductionin the financial turnover. More positively, however,the new studio provides the opportunity for thedepartment to move into digital image-processing on aserious basis. Two new digital workstations werepurchased to meet the rapidly growing demand fordigital images both from external customers and fromLibrary projects financed from external sources.13The Photographicand DigitisationStudio in the newlyopened north-westcorner extension.Carter Studio