The UAA/APU Consortium Library will be declared officially open Friday, Oct. 8 at 11 a.m. in the library’s great room.

Immediately following the ceremony refreshments will be served and tours of the facility will be available throughout the afternoon.

The newly reopened library — “the Library of the 21st Century” — is designed to advance academic and research excellence. The new facility bridges the past and the future, combines the virtual and the physical and inspires individual study and collaborative research.

The building is a depository for books and journals and an archive for historical documents. It is a hub for virtual library resources, wireless web connections and a center for creating digital content. It is a place to plug into Mozart, the Internet or Alaska history.

The building’s progressive design takes advantage of the natural light and the mountain views, wraps around study areas and surrounds a Foucault pendulum within the main staircase.

The new complex is a place for people, for instruction and discovery and for preservation of information in all formats.

The Library of the 21st Century is a place of collections and connections.

In honor of the library’s reopening Robert Pinsky, former U.S. poet laureate and founder of the national Favorite Poem project, will present a delightful evening of poetry, commentary and a book signing that same evening, Oct. 8, at 7:00 in the Wendy Williamson Auditorium.

Although his translation of Dante’s “Inferno” became a best seller in 1994 Pinsky is perhaps best known for his Favorite Poem Project.

Pinsky believes poetry should be given a voice.

“A poem is moving and beautiful when you say it aloud,” he says.

He relates poetry to a musical experience.

“I’m much more interested in how a poem sounds. I’d like people to trust that they can read a poem aloud in their own voice.”

A book signing will follow immediately after Pinsky’s presentation in the lobby of the auditorium.

The evening event with Robert Pinsky is a free to the public. No tickets are necessary. For additional information contact Karen Hill at 786-1288.