A WTS Case Study
Chester Beatty Exhibition Display Storage and Setup
The Chester Beatty Library is an Irish museum promoting the appreciation and understanding of world cultures with holdings of manuscripts, rare books, and other treasures from Europe, the Middle East, North Africa and Asia. Once the private library of Sir Alfred Chester Beatty (1875 – 1968), a successful American mining engineer, collector and philanthropist, the Chester Beatty is also today a research library for scholars from all over the world. WTS is retained by the Chester Beatty Library to provide off-site secure storage facilities to the library and to transport and position display cases for their exhibitions.
The Customer Need:
The Chester Beatty Library is in a lovely old building in the shadows of Dublin Castle, in central Dublin. Like many museums, much of the building is dedicated to public displays which means that space is very limited for the storage of display equipment when it is not being used in the museum area.
The museum runs a series of special exhibitions throughout the calendar year and consequently there are regular changes to the public displays. The museum needs the special display cases, furniture and equipment that is not in use to be securely stored and the ability to have these transported carefully back to the museum for certain exhibitions, while other equipment is removed and placed in storage.
The WTS Solution:
The WTS team have a wealth of experience in handling museum equipment with the care it needs. With access to a secure storage facility conveniently located on the outskirts of Dublin, we were in an ideal position to offer the museum the ability to plan their storage requirements and provide notice for equipment to be moved in and out of storage as needed by the changing exhibitions.
Most recently one such move was for the ‘First Fragments’ exhibition which is showcasing the Biblical Papyrus from Roman Egypt, an internationally important collection of manuscripts known as the Chester Beatty Biblical Papyri. Dating from the 2nd to 4th century AD, these ancient pages reveal a world of book production and early Christian scholarship in Roman Egypt. Our team supported the museum by transporting a range of specialist display cases from our storage facility to the museum and positioning them in the exhibition hall for the historic collection to be displayed to the public. We removed equipment from the previous exhibition and returned this safely into our storage facility for when it is needed next.
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