Royal College of Surgeons Ireland Library: Revisit

In 2020 the IFLA World Library and Information Congress was due to be held in Dublin and a visit to the RCSI Library was planned. All that was to change, however, with the Covid pandemic. The Congress was deferred and RCSI Library had to adapt to a very different scenario than had been envisaged at the planning and design stage. 

Adapting to Covid

In 2022 the IFLA congress did take place in Dublin and the IFLA Library Buildings and Equipment Section (LBES) committee members visited the library with Karen Latimer, Chief Adviser to Designing Libraries. Of particular interest to the group was how the design of the library had enabled library staff to respond to providing a library service under Covid requirements and to see how the library building was functioning five years after opening.  

Library Director, Kate Kelly, explained that the layout and circulation meant that the repurposing of spaces was relatively simple although the original plans for the entrance floor as a busy collaborative space had to be adapted. The freeing up of space as print was replaced by digital resources made social distancing easier and the emphasis on self-service technologies had helped to minimise staff contact with students even before the library closed.  

Online services

The library was designed with online services in mind and the learning and library spaces were deliberately viewed as one aspect of the overall service. Covid accelerated the provision and extent of the existing online and digital services. A virtual information point and scan and send, click and collect, and click and deliver services were introduced. And, of course, being a medical library wellbeing was always an important part of the brief with diversity of spaces and a gym in the basement of the building.

The LBES group was very impressed with the library and the service it provides. Even before the pandemic those involved in library building design had been stressing the importance of flexibility, ambience, wellbeing, comfort and safety - all very much in evidence in the RCSI Library and all particularly important in current times.