AUSTIN | Main Public Library | 123 FEET | 6 FLOORS | COMPLETE

[KevinFromTexas]

http://impactnews.com/central-austin...entral-library

Austin’s new central library

By Bobby Longoria
Friday, 28 January 2011

CENTRAL AUSTIN — Austin’s first library of the future, a facility meant to propagate community activity and knowledge through technology and innovation, will open its doors in downtown by 2015.

“We are going to build a hundred-year building that is built for the ages—to endure,” said John Gillum, facilities planning manager for Austin’s new central library. “In 2015, we want to be on the cutting edge of how people want their information.”

Libraries were once quiet strongholds of information, with rows of books lined up spine to spine. Austin’s current central library, the John Henry Faulk Central Library, was built with this model in 1979, but as technology grew and as the population became more interconnected, this model became antiquated, Gillum said.

At a size between 185,000 square feet and 200,000 square feet, the central library will be nearly twice the size of the Faulk library. An underground parking garage with 200 spots will be built alongside the library. There will be 17 different meeting spaces, including study rooms, conference rooms and a special event center that will hold 350 people.