Editorial: Libraries give us power
Cork is getting a new city public library!
This week it was announced that Cork City Council is to buy the historic Counting House complex on South Main Street for €35m plus VAT. It’s great news indeed given how unsuitable the current Grand Parade Library has been for so many years. You could well argue that Cork City Council have been far too slow to move on this but I’m just grateful we will have a new city library soon. The council announced the decision on Monday and said the Counting House complex was “was identified as the best location for a new city library following a detailed review, involving local input, national and international experts, of several other city centre options. The complex, part of the former Beamish & Crawford brewery - and a four-storey office complex to the rear, emerged as the most affordable, lowest risk, and best performing option across all key criteria, including cost, value for money, deliverability, sustainability, and cultural impact.”
Crucially, the new library will open to the public much sooner than any of the other options city council considered. This development represents one of the local authority’s largest single investments in cultural infrastructure in a generation. About time, says you!
The Counting House complex is more than three times the size of the current city library, and will feature: a shop and café space; lecture, performance and exhibition spaces; space to host the existing 500,000-strong catalogue of books, magazines and journals and 300 study spaces. There will also be children’s/teen/and young adult sections; an expanded Cork Local Studies section and an expanded Rory Gallagher music library. It will cater for an estimated one million visitors expected to visit the library per annum by 2050. It will also bring more life and vitality to the South Main Street area which is becoming more attractive and vibrant.
Chief Executive of Cork City Council, Valerie O’Sullivan, said the Counting House complex is fronted by a prominent heritage building, the historic character of which makes it a natural home for a flagship cultural institution.
“Its reuse reflects international best practice, where cities such as Helsinki, Aarhus, London and Montreal have transformed historic, industrial or commercial buildings into vibrant, modern libraries that become major civic attractions. This new world-class facility serves as an attractor of people to our city, a priority objective of this council.”
“Libraries gave us power” according to the Welsh band Manic Street Preachers from their song ‘A Design for Life’ in 1996. More power to us!