A MAJOR revamp of York Central Library is to be carried out later this year in an attempt to attract more visitors and offer more community services.

The library, off Museum Street, will close for six to eight weeks in the autumn, as the first phase of work is undertaken. It will be re-designed and re-branded as an Explore centre, following the success of a similar move in Acomb, where visitor numbers have trebled from 200 to 600 a day.

Work had been delayed last year due to a funding shortfall, but leisure and culture officials at City of York Council said they had now enough money to carry out £540,000 of work on the ground floor. Later phases would be carried out once more funding was available, with about £1 million to be spent on a history and archive centre, and a further £3.5 million overhauling the rest of the building. The first phase has been funded partly by an education partnership with Aviva, partly by the sale of £100,000 of obsolete stock, and partly by the council.

The revamp will see the library gain new study spaces, a café, and a range of different rooms. It will also allow the library to increase its opening hours and stock.

In a report to be considered by councillors next week, Fiona Williams, the council’s head of libraries, wrote: “The target is to have 30,000 additional books, making a total stock of 120,000. There will be a larger ration of paperbacks to hardbacks, as that is what people have told us they want.”

She said the self-issue counter would be replaced by self-issue machines, freeing up staff to work more closely with the public.

It is hoped the move will also allow the reference library to open for an extra 6.5 hours a week, and the lending library for an extra 9.5 hours, including new Sunday opening.

Coun Christian Vassie, the council’s executive member for leisure and culture, said York was now leading the way nationally in library services, and praised its new initiative to lend energy-efficient smart meters, which showed where householders were wasting energy.

He said: “A number of people have told me that, by lending smart meters, we are reinventing what libraries are.

“More than 25 local authorities are looking to follow our lead, with councillors across the land seeking to persuade their administrations to set up smart meter library schemes of their own.”

A report on the project will go to the council’s leisure and culture panel next Tuesday.