For many of us, the Macquarie Library represents the heart and soul of our University.

It embodies the best of what we are as an institution – technology, innovation and sustainability coming together to house knowledge, research and collaboration.

August marks 10 years since the opening of our iconic and modern library building.  The 2011 opening event bought the whole University community together, with staff, students and honoured guests  forming a human chain to move the first of the Library’s extensive collection of books (fittingly, a copy of Moving Library Materials) from the old library building to its new multi-million dollar home.

The new building’s sustainability features were an impressive testament to the University’s commitment to green design and construction. The Automatic Storage and Retrieval System (ASRS) in particular has wowed many a guest over the last decade, housing 80 per cent of the library’s physical collection, reducing the building’s footprint by more that 11,000 square metres and saving approximately a million kilowatt hours (kWh) of energy per year.

University Librarian Belinda Tiffen says the anniversary is a great opportunity to reflect on how much libraries have changed in a very short period of time.

“We’re much more digital now – something that has really assisted us to continue serving the Macquarie community in our current circumstances,” she says. “Today we have more than one million ebooks and journals, and our community can access assistance anytime via our website.”

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Since our new Library opened in 2011…

• there have been more than 19.4 million visits to the building (with 16,000 visits being the daily record)
• more than 2.1 million physical items have been loaned
• Library staff have taken more than 700,000 enquiries and consultations
• their information literacy workshops have had more than 70,000 attendees
• users have taken some 96 million actions in MultiSearch
• staff have added more than 57,000 records from Macquarie researchers into researchonline.mq.edu.au.

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Despite the huge shift to digital, the Library continues (under normal circumstances) to be important as a physical place to study, research, write and think. When the new library building opened in 2011 it had almost three times as many seats as the original library and more than double the physical collection space.

“Over the last 10 years our spaces have evolved in response to feedback from our clients and the changing needs of our students,” says Belinda. “We hope the Library continues to be a place that inspires curiosity and intellectual inquiry for many years to come.”

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Were you part of the Library’s opening celebrations? Share your favourite memories of Macquarie Unversity Library over the last 10 years in the comments below.

This Week thanks the Library team for their assistance in putting together this story.