Central Library reopens after renovation with a late-night reading room

The queue outside the Central Library began forming before the doors opened yesterday morning. Some people wanted to see the restored entrance hall; others simply wanted their old desks back. Within the first hour, staff had issued 340 new library cards, more than the building usually manages in a fortnight.

The €6.4m renovation, paid for jointly by the city council and a national heritage fund, replaced a leaking lead roof, added two lifts and rewired a building that still relied in places on cabling laid in the 1960s. Around 140,000 books were packed, stored in a warehouse in Eastmoor and returned shelf by shelf over the past three months.

A room that keeps student hours

The biggest change is on the second floor. The former periodicals room, with its tall windows over the harbour, has become a reading room open from six in the evening until midnight. It has 80 desks, quiet booths, power sockets at every seat and a staffed counter. Entry after nine requires a library card, which is free to anyone who lives, works or studies in the city.

Moira Castell, the head librarian, said the late opening came directly from a survey of 2,100 users before the closure. "Shift workers, carers, students sharing small flats, people who simply cannot find a quiet hour at home until the evening," she said. "They told us the library closed exactly when they needed it."

I used to revise in the launderette because it was warm and open late; now I have somewhere better.

Jakub Nowicki, a second-year engineering student at the University of Wrenhaven, was among the first to claim a desk on the opening night. He said the tram stop outside made the room easier to reach than the campus library on St Anselm's Hill, which closes at ten.

• The harbour archive, including 9,000 shipping records, can now be searched on the library's terminals.

• A children's floor with a storytelling corner opens on the ground level.

• The rooftop terrace is closed until the spring while planting beds are finished.

The council will review the late-night opening after six months, using visitor counts and a second survey to decide whether to keep it.