The Science Museum is to create a new research centre at its South Kensington site. The centre will provide a world-class environment for academic research and a greater connection between the museum’s objects and its library and archive collections.
Bringing together the museum’s thriving Research and Public History Department and access to its library and archive collections, the research centre will open in the autumn of 2015. It aims to increase the use and understanding of these outstanding collections by academics and lay researchers as well as providing a welcoming, contemporary and light-filled environment with a mix of offices, a quiet reading area and open shelving for printed material.
The research centre will replace the Science Museum Library, scheduled to close on 3 February, which is situated on Imperial College London’s South Kensington Campus. The move follows an agreement between the two institutions that will free up the current space for the College to use for its own activities while paving the way for the development of the new research centre.