“It feels like a space full of success stories waiting to happen. Thank you for creating it for us." This comment about the new Medicine and Health Sciences library was made by a Stellenbosch University student and retold by Ilana van Niekerk, the chairperson of the Tygerberg Academic Affairs Council, at the official opening of the modern new library on the university's Tygerberg campus.

Speaking on behalf of the Tygerberg student body, Van Niekerk expressed her sincere thanks to the university council and other stakeholders involved in the funding, design and development of the library. “Thank you for thinking of us as students, and thinking of our success in the development of this project. We will cherish it and use it to be the best that we can be," said Van Niekerk.

The 3 000m2 library has been entirely refurbished and is now an ultramodern facility with innovative spaces for collaborative learning and research, and boasts state-of-the-art video conferencing and e-classroom amenities.

“We often speak about Stellenbosch as being a world-class university. Part of what makes it world class is having world-class facilities – and this is what we see over here," said Prof Eugene Cloete, Vice-Rector: Research, Innovation and Postgraduate Studies at the opening event.

“This is a wonderful moment," said Cloete. “You start off with a dream and you end up with a space like this. And you can celebrate it in the university's centenary year. It's just wonderful."

SU Rector and Vice Chancellor, Prof Wim de Villiers, also praised the new library. “Isn't it great to have this friendly, fresh space filled with light and colour? A modern, future focused place serving a new generation of library users with the latest technology and opportunities for interactive, collaborative learning and research," De Villiers reiterated.

According to him this is in line with international trends and contemporary thinking about the place of the library in the 21st century. “Jeffrey Schnapp of Harvard says: 'We tend to think of libraries as collections, but the libraries of the future will be more about connections'. Connecting people to the great cloud of information enveloping us in the digital age, but also connecting people to each other," De Villiers said.

This feature of the new Medicine and Health Sciences library is aligned with the one of the themes of the University's new Strategic Framework, namely, networked and collaborative teaching and learning, De Villiers said. “The aim of the collaborative approach is to create learning communities where students, staff, and alumni can experience meaningful learning."

A yellow wood tree was planted in a courtyard in the centre of the library, and conceptualizes the philosophy of a library being symbolically and physically the heartbeat of a university. It symbolizes the seed of knowledge and creative thinking that is planted in the library, and precipitates growth of the campus community.

Prof Jimmy Volmink, Dean of the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, congratulated the Roelof Rabe Architects on the successful design and development of the new library, and thanked Linda Bellairs and Yusuf Ras (the former and current heads of the Medicine and Health Sciences Library respectively) for seeing this ambitious project through to completion. He also commended the Rector's Management Team and the University Council for being future focused in terms of providing financial support for the project.

Caption: Mr Yusuf Ras, Eben Mouton, Profs Eugene Cloete, Wim de Villiers and Jimmy Volmink, and Ms Ellen Tise and Mr Roelof Rabe.