The queue outside the Central Library began forming before the doors opened yesterday morning. Some people wanted to see the restored entrance hall; others simply wanted their old desks back. Within the first hour, staff had issued 340 new library cards, more than the building usually manages in a fortnight.
The €6.4m renovation, paid for jointly by the city council and a national heritage fund, replaced a leaking lead roof, added two lifts and rewired a building that still relied in places on cabling laid in the 1960s. Around 140,000 books were packed, stored in a warehouse in Eastmoor and returned shelf by shelf over the past three months.
A room that keeps student hours
The biggest change is on the second floor. The former periodicals room, with its tall windows over the harbour, has become a reading room open from six in the evening until midnight. It has 80 desks, quiet booths, power sockets at every seat and a staffed counter. Entry after nine requires a library card, which is free to anyone who lives, works or studies in the city.
Moira Castell, the head librarian, said the late opening came directly from a survey of 2,100 users before the closure. "Shift workers, carers, students sharing small flats, people who simply cannot find a quiet hour at home until the evening," she said. "They told us the library closed exactly when they needed it."
I used to revise in the launderette because it was warm and open late; now I have somewhere better.
Jakub Nowicki, a second-year engineering student at the University of Wrenhaven, was among the first to claim a desk on the opening night. He said the tram stop outside made the room easier to reach than the campus library on St Anselm's Hill, which closes at ten.
The harbour archive, including 9,000 shipping records, can now be searched on the library's terminals.
A children's floor with a storytelling corner opens on the ground level.
The rooftop terrace is closed until the spring while planting beds are finished.
The council will review the late-night opening after six months, using visitor counts and a second survey to decide whether to keep it.