WORCESTER’S new library will be a model for the new era of libraries called for by the country’s culture minister, it has been revealed.

Europe’s first fully integrated public and university library, which will open in Worcester in 2012, has been praised by culture minister Margaret Hodge.

Members of the public will share books and facilities with students and academics at Worcester Library and History Centre in the innovative joint project between the University of Worcester and Worcestershire County Council.

In a consultation paper on the future of libraries, Ms Hodge said libraries must offer new structures, new services and new ways of working in order to fit in with modern society.

Worcester’s new library promises to have all of this and more, being the first in Europe to be fully integrated, allowing members of the public access to resources usually only available to university students.

The new library will put in place use of new technology and new ways of working which are currently being piloted throughout Worcestershire’s library service and will become a flagship for the county.

The initiative also won praise from shadow business secretary Ken Clarke during a recent visit to the university, when he de-scribed it as “a very enlightened idea” and “a great benefit both to the academic community and to local citizens”.

“I’m astonished we don’t combine a city library with a university elsewhere in the UK,” he said.

The library, which will open in early 2012, will challenge the old-fashioned stereotype of libraries by providing an excellent example of integrated partnership working.

The combined facility includes an extensive children’s library, 800 study stations, and also incorporates the Worcestershire Records Office, Worcestershire Historic Environment and Archaeology Service and a Worcestershire Hub customer service centre.

Anne Hannaford, a member of the joint project board, summed up the new building as “an exciting combination of facilities that, as the first of its kind in Europe, will attract international attention as well as serving the local, regional and national community”.

She said: “The use of space targets different users’ needs, with an outside area to teach young children, a place to experience touch and sound through the latest audiovisual technology, a section to read and study quietly with research books and laptops, somewhere to sit and chatter and grab a cup of coffee, and a room to meet with business colleagues to discuss and present ideas.”