On June 2 in Latvia, one of the Biblio project partner countries, the newly built Ogre Central Library building was opened and will welcome visitors in August this year.
The new library building is special with hitherto unused standards in the construction of energy-efficient wooden structures. The library will serve as a multifunctional cultural education centre, which will house the library and the marriage registry office. The Ogre Central Library building was built with glued wood construction technology, one of Latvia’s first public buildings built with such a method.
The new Ogre Central Library building has two floors. It is a so-called passive building or a building with zero energy consumption. In both the facade and the interior of the building, open wooden constructions open up to the view of visitors in many places. Wood is the main material used in this building.
The new building is equipped with intelligently controlled lighting using up to 80 percent natural light. Using the available resources and proving energy efficiency, a recuperation ventilation system will be operated, which will remove the air while retaining its heat. A unique heating system with a sewage heat exchanger has been built in the building, a green plant wall has been created in the atrium, for the irrigation of which it is planned to use the collected rainwater. Above the parking lot, on steel structures, solar panels are installed for local electricity generation.
Construction of the new Ogre Central Library building was started in October 2019 with the dismantling of the old building. It is an ambitious project that stimulates public interest in the library, attracts a new audience, and surprises with new content and available services. The implementation of the library construction project took place in close cooperation between the local and the Latvian government. It is an unprecedented building in Latvia and the Baltics, where various innovative solutions are concentrated in one building. Neither in Europe, there are many such examples.
Ogre Central Library is in the centre of Ogre town (with a population of almost 24,000), next to the local government, the cultural centre, music school, art school, and so on.
Ogre Central Library provides librarian, bibliographic and information services to the inhabitants. It is the main library of the Ogre region, coordinating, performing methodological functions, and providing advisory assistance to 20 public libraries of the region’s four counties. The library serves more than 5,000 registered users and has a collection of almost 67 thousand books and other printed materials.
Ogre Central Library has a long relationship with innovation: in November 1996 started providing mobile library services and until 2009 was the only mobile library in Latvia. The library bus of Ogre Central Library serves the residents of Ogre, Lielvārde and Ķegums counties on 4 routes and the residents of Ogre city on 2 routes, in a total of 34 stops and library bus drive about 700 km.
Find out more about the opening event of the Ogre Central Library here.
