New Okinawa City library opens Wednesday

Okinawa City Library is transferring Wednesday (May 3) from its old location in Nakanomachi to Korinza Building at the end of Chuo Park Avenue, in order to give it the much needed extra space.

The first floor of Korinza was renovated to accommodate the library. The library now has the floor space of about 5,041 square meters that is almost three times as much as the old library. The new space makes Okinawa City Library the largest in the Kyushu area.

The new library has 220,000 books that is 30,000 more than before, and the aim is to increase the number to 350,000 in the future. There are 271 seats on the floor for library users to relax and take time to read or study. In the local materials corner, there are valuable books from the Ryukyuan-American Friendship Center that existed before Okinawa’s reversion.

The facility vision is “Anytime, anywhere, and for anybody.”

Services include projectors that display enlarged text on a screen and voice books for visually impaired persons. In the children’s book corner, there is a soundproof chamber where parents can read books aloud to their children without disturbing other patrons reading in quiet. There are also nursing rooms for mothers with small babies.

The library opens to public from 3 p.m. Wednesday after an inauguration ceremony.

21:07 29 Mar , 2024