engineering

Newcastle City Library

Newcastle City Library is a engineering topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Newcastle City Library rather than just read about it. In short: Newcastle City Library (also known as the Charles Avison Building) is a library in the city centre of Newcastle upon Tyne, United Kingdom. Completed on 3 March 2009, the building opened on 7 June 2009, and is the city's main public library.

Key takeaways

Newcastle City Library belongs to engineering; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Newcastle City Library to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Newcastle City Library from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Newcastle City Library (also known as the Charles Avison Building) is a library in the city centre of Newcastle upon Tyne, United Kingdom. Completed on 3 March 2009, the building opened on 7 June 2009, and is the city's main public library.

The Victorian building

In the 1870s, the city council decided to commission a public library. The site they selected, on New Bridge Street, had been occupied by the old Carliol Tower, which had formed part of the old town wall. The foundation stone for the new building was laid by the Lord Mayor, Jonathan Angus, on 13 September 1880. The building was designed by Alfred Mountain Fowler in the neoclassical style, built in ashlar stone and was officially opened by the Prince and Princess of Wales on 20 August 1883. The design involved a symmetrical main frontage of 15 bays facing onto New Bridge Street, with the end sections of three bays each projected forward to form towers. The central section of three bays, which was also projected forward, featured a portico formed by Doric order columns supporting an entablature. On the first floor, there were a series of Corinthian order columns supporting a cornice and, at roof level, the central bay was surmounted by four caryatids supporting a pediment. Internally, the principal rooms were a lending library, which was 60 feet (18 m) long and 40 feet (12 m) wide, and a semi-circular reference library, which was 58 feet (18 m) long and 36 feet (11 m) wide.

The 1960s building

The original building was demolished in the mid-1960s to make way for a new structure on the corner of John Dobson Street and New Bridge Street West. The neighbouring Laing Art Gallery, which had been built adjacent to the old Victorian library, was left somewhat out of context following the demolition of the older building, with a blind brick wall facing towards the city centre. The new building was designed by Sir Basil Spence in the brutalist style, built in concrete and steel and was opened in 1968. The road to the rear of the library, John Dobson Street, used to have a concrete canopy which extended over the dual carriageway stretching from Durant Road up to the junction of New Bridge Street West. The canopy was at the official ground floor level of the library and provided a rear entrance for the library, with access onto what was ultimately a rather unused pedestrian area with seats and other street furniture. The arrangement formed part of the 1960s "City in the Sky" vision. The city council changed the name of the building from Central Library to City Library in the late 1990s. It became unfit for the purpose of a public library. The design was said to be ugly, with TV presenter and author John Grundy describing it as "a monstrous concrete blob". The building was closed on 1 September 2006 and demolished.

The new building The foundation stone for the new building was laid by the Lord Mayor, Peter John Arnold, on 17 December 2007. It was designed by Ryder Architecture in the modern style and featured a long 'glass box' which formed the eastern side of the steel frame structure. It was built by a joint venture of Tolent Construction and Kajima Construction at a cost of £24 million. The Poet Laureate Andrew Motion was guest of honour at the handover of the new building from the contractors to the city council on 3 March 2009. The public opening day, 7 June 2009, saw a programme of entertainment from musicians performing in the entrance hall with fictional characters including Captain Hook, Sherlock Holmes, Alice in Wonderland, The Queen of Hearts, The Gruffalo and Peter Rabbit. The six-storey building contained a marble-floored atrium, a viewing platform, a 185-seat performance space, a café and an exhibition space. It was named the Charles Avison Building, after the 18th-century Newcastle composer, and officially opened by Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh on 6 November 2009. When it first opened the new building used technologies specifically designed for use in libraries. It was an early adopter of RFID library tagging technology. Every book was fitted with a digital tag, meaning books could be checked out and returned via automated checkout points, and theft of stock would become much harder. Staff members carried hands-free voice-activated WiFi radios to communicate with other members of staff, a first in the UK. In 2016, the library featured in scenes in the film I, Daniel Blake, directed by Ken Loach, where the eponymous character upon losing his life-long job as a builder goes to the library to get online to apply for welfare benefits.

References

External links

City Library (Libraries in Newcastle) on Newcastle Council website Newcastle Libraries on TikTok

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Newcastle City Library

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Newcastle City Library claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In engineering, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Newcastle City Library before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Newcastle City Library ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Newcastle City Library

In research: Newcastle City Library appears in engineering research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Newcastle City Library in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Newcastle City Library is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Buildings and structures in Newcastle upon Tyne, Glass architecture, Government buildings completed in 2009, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Newcastle City Library outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Newcastle City Library in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Newcastle City Library means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Newcastle City Library out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Newcastle City Library in simple terms?

Why does Newcastle City Library matter?

Because it connects several engineering ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Newcastle City Library?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Newcastle City Library.