New City of Adelaide Library

Yesterday I caught up with Anne Rundle - City of Adelaide Library manager - and she showed me a bunch of photos of the developing fit out of the new City Library in Rundle Mall.  Things are looking great & I can't wait to see the finished product.  The library is due to open in February.

But it is not just the library's physical space which will be great to see, but also the council's plans for the library to leverage a whole range of partnerships to create a truly vibrant city centre library.  I won't say too much about these plans as they're still a work in progress, but I would say, "watch this space" in terms of the ambitious and interesting approach that the library will take.  As part of her plans Anne is interested in a mutually beneficial relationship with the State Library & so in my current acting role I will looking at opportunities for this to occur.

If you want to know a bit more about the library & see a few photos etc you may want to visit the City of Adelaide site here. There are 3 newsletters up on the site (with a 4th soon to appear) along with a message from the Lord Mayor and other information about the library and its focus.

The latest email gives us a taste of what is in store with references to their community partnerships as well as spaces and services such as:

A digital Hub and Innovation Lab

Quiet zones

A Media Lab & public computers

2 Studios

Meeting rooms 

An event space

An outdoor reading room

A history hub

A gallery space

I'd urge you to visit the council's site & keep an eye on the site for further information.  I am sure that many of us will be trekking into the Mall come February to see the real thing.  As we get closer to the event I will ask Anne to do a guest blog post explaining the philosophy which led to the way the library works. However she may want to save that for a presentation to us at some stage.

One of the outcomes of this development is that the City of Adelaide will be closing its library branch inside the State Library on North Terrace.  This provides a wonderful opportunity for the State Library to develop a new space on its ground floor.  I have been deeply involved in the development of this space & am excited about what it will mean for the Library.  I will post about this at a later stage when we're a bit closer to opening up this space.