Ludlow Library and Museum Resource Centre - How we moved a museum

A Mammoth Task!

Building the new Library and Museum Resource Centre has been a massive undertaking. However, it didn't end there because the process of moving collections to the new building then had to take place with the Library Service moving first and the Museum Service collections following on.


To give you some idea of the task, the Library Service alone had to move 20,000 books, over 300 audio tapes, 300 videos and 200 CDs as well as over 500 maps and a large amount of local studies material.

This took a team of over a dozen library staff, volunteers and professional movers a week to achieve from packing at one end to rearranging at the other and involved about 5 large van loads of material each day.
New library ready for books


Following the completion of Ludlow Library and Museum Resource Centre, the huge task of moving the Museum Service’s collections of Natural History, Geology, Art and Social History that were housed at Old Street, could begin. The staff at Ludlow were helped by some of those from Acton Scott & Much Wenlock Museums, as well as our by a team of dedicated volunteers who have spent the last seven or so years preparing the collections for the move.


The process was meticulously planned beforehand and even involved freezing some of our collections down to minus 30 degrees in order to prevent museum pests coming into the new building with the objects. We transported over 110,000 objects varying in size from butterflies and buttons to a fully grown mammoth and the move took us over 3 months to complete.

The old geology store