Gerstner opens its new library to the city

After two years behind scaffolding, the library on the river side of campus opened again on Monday. The reading room has kept its concrete vaults and tall windows, and gained 300 new desks, a quiet floor for doctoral candidates and a ground floor café that faces the courtyard.

The biggest change is who can come in. The library is now open to every resident of Basel, with or without a student card, from 8 in the morning until midnight, seven days a week. Borrowing still needs a university account, but reading, studying and using the wifi do not.

We rebuilt the library because a university in the middle of a city should give something back to it. Come and see it: the first public tours run every Saturday in October at 11:00, starting at the main desk.