New City Library celebrates first birthday
28 June 2011
Manchester's City Library is poised to celebrate a successful first anniversary as work to restore and improve the Central Library continues.
The library opened its doors on 28 June last year as a temporary home for Manchester 's Central Library services while it undergoes an extensive refurbishment.
The new City Library has been incredibly well received by library users, drawing 318,967 visitors over the first ten months in operation and attracting 6440 new library members. Almost half a million items have been borrowed and nearly 100,000 PC bookings have been made.
In fact, the numbers of people using all library services are growing month on month, and the introduction of Wi-Fi in January, for customers who prefer to use their own computers, has encouraged bookings of around 700 internet sessions per month.
The City Library is standing in for the much loved Central Library which will reopen in 2013. The work will restore and refurbish many original features and make the acclaimed collections more available to the public.
The refurbished library will see more space open to the customer and a new ground floor that will house The Manchester Room and Archives +, a one stop shop showcasing Manchester 's history.
Apart from the extensive book and archive collection, there will also be large multi-media collections, learning spaces for groups and individual quiet study, performance spaces and a cafe.
In addition, an ultra modern city centre library space will be created in the Town Hall Extension, which is also being refurbished to open in 2013.
Councillor Mike Amesbury, Manchester City Council's executive member for culture and leisure, said: "The continuing success of Manchester 's library service while the Central Library closed for refurbishment is astonishing - and the surge in new library users is a testament to that success.
"Now library users old and new can look forward to the exciting reopening of the Central Library - redesigned and transformed into a world class centre fit for a modern vibrant city."
