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New library celebrates visitor milestone early [Birmingham Post (England)]
[September 12, 2013]

New library celebrates visitor milestone early [Birmingham Post (England)]


(Birmingham Post (England) Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) The new Library of Birmingham has welcomed its 100,000 visitor marking a huge milestone for the Pounds 189 million facility.

It has taken a little over a week since Malala Yousafzai officially opened the Library to achieve the milestone and goes beyond early expectations and gives a massive head-start towards the target of three million visitors in the first year.



The 100,000th visitor was named as Graham Fletcher from Bromsgrove who came to the library to do some research. He said "The Library of Birmingham is the best library in Europe, and I've seen them all." About 12,000 people per day are passing through the doors to see the architecture, take in the stunning views from the rooftop terraces, browse the collections or simply enjoy the arts and entertainments on offer.

According to figures released 4,343 people have also seen the restored historic Shakespeare Memorial Room on the ninth floor.


Library director Brian Gambles said: "We're thrilled with the way the people of Birmingham have embraced their new Library. Since our opening last week, we've been packed with excited visitors, some of whom have never set foot in a library before, eager to become a member and join in the celebrations. "The Library of Birmingham is a proud and bold statement of belief in the power of learning and a new symbol for the city that will become known around the world." The city can also claim to be delivering on its pledge to improve education and literacy with 2,325 new members for library service and 10,285 books borrowed in the first seven days.

As well as attracting thousands of visitors the library has also received television coverage around the world. On Wednesday night it was the subject of a special Culture Show programme on the BBC2.

Meanwhile, the Birmingham company commissioned to create a 'virtual world' Library of Birmingham has released a white paper explaining how using cutting edge technology and immersive environments can reduce construction costs.

Daden Limited was asked to deliver a three-dimensional interactive model of the new Pounds 189 million building during its construction process to help inform the fit-out of the internal space.

Daden, based at the Innovation Birmingham Campus at Faraday Wharf, used the architects' plans as a base to build the model, with fly-through videos and style book as references.

The virtual library was then hosted in a public virtual world environment - Second Life. This meant that anyone would be able to download the viewer software and tour the library from their own home.

David Burden, managing director of Daden Limited, said: "Back in 2009 Second Life was the obvious choice for the Library of Birmingham project - it gave us an open system that could not only be made easily available to the public, but also an environment where we could rapidly teach library staff how to build in world.

"We can even deploy buildingscapes on tablet computers, such as the iPad. This means that once the foundations and floors are in place the user can walk around the shell of the building but see the finished model on their iPad. For the future we are looking at how augmented reality could actually overlay the virtual model on top of the physical one".

During early 2011, as construction on the physical library started, Daden worked closely with members of library staff to make sure the virtual library reflected the planned real life building as closely as possible, and Birmingham City Council launched the virtual version in July 2011.

Library developers were able to use the virtual site to identify flows of people through the building, including walkways, viewing spots and potential pinchpoints.

Brian Gambles said: "We opened the doors of the virtual library in 2011, two years before the real building opened in 2013, for the public to come in, explore and share their comments and ideas and encourage people to explore it for themselves.

"This has proved a powerful tool for the project team and staff as we develop the new library, enabling us to get a really good feel for how the spaces in the new building will work that would not otherwise be possible." John Marsh, project manager, Service Birmingham, said: "I ran a session at Yardley Library and the effect was astonishing.

I got one of the kids out of the audience to drive himself around the Virtual Library while his mum and dad were watching on the big screen and they were absolutely staggered.

"There were 40-50 people at a time in those sessions, and to try and have the same impact other than through a 3D model, it would be really difficult. This had much more impact than the public doing it themselves." (c) 2013 ProQuest Information and Learning Company; All Rights Reserved.

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