In January 2002 the new university library and conference opened its doors for the first time. Our ambition is to provide an environment that will stimulate both curiosity and creativity. The library will be a central meeting place offering good academic service to students, researchers and the general public. The building also forms the new entrance to the university and has a lecture theatre seating 600 and a cafeteria.

The library is imbued with the University's vision of openness, multidisciplinarity and learning. This means access to all the library's collections of books and journals, generous opening hours and a good study
environment. It also means that the staff assists in interdisciplinary collaboration, information retrieval and the development of problem-based learning.

In cooperation with academics, the library staff seeks to maintain a relevant selection of books and journals and to acquire sought-after databases. The library is also be a place for teaching. Its role as a pedagogical resource will evolve as problem-based learning grows in
importance.

The new library continues the work of integrating instruction in information retrieval with disciplinary studies. The staff provides supervision and
practice in information retrieval on an individual user basis, with the goal of improving the user's skills.

Apart from its function as a resource for students and staff at the University, the library is intended to be an asset for the whole region. As in January of this year it became a European Documentation Centre, documents
and information on the European Union will also be available.