Concordia’s newly renovated $37-million library includes ‘visualization studio’

It has walls made of green plants. It contains a “technology sandbox” that includes virtual reality labs and three-dimensional printers. And it has a “visualization studio” that combines audio and visual arts on a massive touchscreen, all in a university library established in 1992.

Concordia University began steps to renovate the Webster Library, a research space that sits on the southern end of de Maisonneuve in its downtown campus, in 2012. After the province invested $37 million to bring the library up to date, officials showed the new site off to the public on Friday.

“This was a wildly ambitious project that left no stone unturned in pursuit of a library that was conceived by students, for students,” said Concordia chief librarian Guylaine Beaudry, who described it as a “next-generation” library. The building also houses 21 km of books.

On a more traditional note, the new library incorporates dissertation writers’ rooms for graduate students working on their thesis and more than double the number of study areas available to students that include “zero-noise” rooms.