It is a place I keep coming back to because it is a place that has been a big part of my life since I first walked through its doors aged 19 in 1969.*
Back then as an undergraduate I used the great Social Science Library with its long tables radiating out from the central hub, under that magnificent dome, with that intriguing echo which allowed you to hear a whispered conversation and amplified a book accidently dropped onto a bench on the other side of the room.
And then forty years later I trawled the archives in the Archives and Local history library, researching my first book.**
And in between I was a regular visitor to the Library Theatre, used the coffee bar as a meeting place, and held the launch another of my books.***
It was closed for four years from 2010-14 but reopened, after much essential maintenance and restoration with an exciting new layout.
So that is it.
Location; Manchester
Pictures, Central Ref, 2019, from the collection of Andrew Simpson
*Central Ref, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/Central%20Ref
**The Story of Chorlton-cum-hardy, 2012
***Manchester Remembering 1914-18
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