The days of having to study in an overcrowded, out-of-date library will soon be a thing of the past for students at Waterford Institute of Technology.
A new 6,000 sq. m facility worthy of an institution as important to the south-east as WIT, with space for 1,200 readers, is due to be opened next spring as part of a £40 million development plan for the institute.
At a ceremony on Friday to mark the placing of the cornerstone for the library by the Minister of State, Mr Martin Cullen, the director of the institute, Mr Ray Griffin, acknowledged that for too long students had been asked to accept "uninspiring, indeed distinctly Spartan library accommodation.
"At this time of prosperity we should reflect on the sacrifices students make when they turn from the lure of a career straight after school to the difficult option of educational achievement," he added.
"We need for our part to provide them with an assurance of the best teaching and facilities". The £9 million building, designed by A & D Weychert, is set to make a striking addition to the campus, and will have more than 10 times the space of the institute's current library. The building will include a suite of seminar rooms, a lecture room, learning centre, rooftop cafeteria, bookshop and boardroom.
The institute's vice-principal, Mr John O'Connell, said he hoped the building would be "a place of encounter and possibility" for information-age users.
"Its construction will also give a strong signal to the local community that Waterford has, at last, a third-level library centre that equals and in many respects surpasses those of other regions."