With its holdings in the millions, the Giessen University Library is one of the largest of its kind. The holdings have grown again particularly in recent years, with steadily increasing numbers of students adding more and more users, and opening times have been extended until late in the evening.

All of this has brought the central building to the limits of its capacity.

Wolfram Ahlers

Correspondent for the Rhein-Main-Zeitung for Central Hesse and the Wetterau.

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    A new building should provide a remedy. In the longer term, it is also planned to accommodate several specialist and branch libraries at the site. The planned four-storey building, which will be financed with around 53 million euros from the state's Heureka university building program and connected to the existing university library, is the largest building in the context of the redesign and expansion of the Schiffenberger Tal campus. Together with the seminar building I and a new cafeteria, the new library building will shape the central square on Rathenaustraße and form the heart of the Philosophikum. The design comes from the Berlin architects Max Dudler.

    In the conception of the central library, special emphasis is placed on the integration of student workstations and a modern concept as a knowledge store and at the same time a place of learning, as it is called.

    A total of 17,000 meters of book storage space, 41 workstations for employees of the university library and 618 spaces for users in individual and group study rooms are provided.

    There is also a learning center.

    Master plan for the "Campus of the Future"

    A research reading room is connected to a new, modern special magazine for the particularly valuable holdings. These include, for example, the papyrus collection and the medieval manuscripts of the university library. There is also space for the older collections of the university archive. In addition, there are rooms for files from 1945 and almost 600 meters of storage space. An extension to the university computer center will also be integrated into the new building. A so-called campus of the future is being built on the Schiffenberger Tal campus, the seat of the humanities faculties and central institutions of the university, which is intended to enable the Justus Liebig University to continue to do well in the competition between universities. This not only requires new buildings, the area also needs new structures.It is not just about creating an attractive atmosphere for research and teaching, but also about enhancing the cityscape in the east of Giessen. The university and the city have therefore jointly developed the master plan for the “Campus of the Future”.

    The first expansion stage comprises a good half a dozen projects and is expected to extend into 2024. A classroom building for several faculties in the humanities and cultural sciences with seminar rooms and lecture halls, a foyer and lounge area has already been completed. The completion of the graduate center for cultural studies is expected this year. 200 researchers and young scientists should be able to work there under better working conditions.

    The cultural studies graduate center is one of the prestigious institutions of the second largest Hessian university and has repeatedly scored points in the excellence initiative of the federal and state governments. Another seminar building will be added in the center of the new campus square, which connects Philosophika I and II, which were previously spatially separated from each other. The start of construction is planned for the year after next. The last major building block in the first expansion stage is the new building of the cafeteria. The architectural competition is to take place soon. As for the renovation and modernization of the Audimax, the work had to be suspended because it turned out that the statics had to be recalculated.

    The Schiffenberger Tal campus was built on the outskirts of the city in the 1960s in addition to the university district between the train station and the city ring. It soon became apparent that the university needed more research and teaching buildings to accommodate the large number of students. The university campus grew step by step to almost double its original area. More than 10,000 students come and go in the Schiffenberger Tal with the nearby institutes of law, economics and sport, which corresponds to a third of all students at Giessen University.