Yesterday you may have seen my photos from my visit to the Library of Birmingham prior to its opening (which is on Tuesday 3rd September.) I mentioned the Discovery Season brochure curated by Capsule – of which I have now had the time to have a good read through.

Below are a selection of things that I’ll be going to/I like the look of. As ever, do check out the programme yourselves so you can see what else there is on offer. It’s four months long, so on CiB we’re more than likely to give coverage to events throughout the course of the season.

Remember, a Library is for life, and although there are great events lined up don’t forget you can join the library (if you haven’t already) to enjoy book borrowing, downloads, free access to subscription only websites, free wifi in the building and more. It’s free to join of course.

• 3rd September @ 12.30pm – the Library of Birmingham grand opening, with Sound Artists Super Critical Mass presenting Together We Breathe
• 3rd-5th September – throughout the daytime Stans Cafe are in residence, broadcasting everything they see and hear, you can listen on www.stanscafe.co.uk
• 7th-8th September – Four Squares weekender – produced by Birmingham Hippodrome – events taking place in four of Birmingham’s city centre squares: Victoria, Centenary, Chamberlain and Oozells
• You can view Capsule’s trail of sound and visual artworks throughout the Library including Su Blackwell, Lucy McLauchlan, Laura Kate Chapman and Symphony of Atlas

Further down the line there are more Discovery Season events, my highlights include:

• 8th-13th October – The Outcrowd Collective’s House of Beorma archive
• 25th-27th October – Supersonic Festival inspired Bring to Light “A weekend of adventurous music, celebrating the very best in new music and performance”. I’m particularly looking forward to the Sleaford Mods (being from Sleaford y’know.)
• 25th-27th October – Flatpack Festival present Box of Light, celebrating early cinema. I’d recommend The Icebook – I saw it at Flatpack 2012 and it blew me away.
• 5th-7th December – Volume: Art, Book and Print Fair. Plenty of great workshops going on, I’m hoping to get to Writing for Digital: Not Losing the Plot, Make it then tell everybody by Birmingham Zine Festival, and An Endless Supply presents in conversation with Peter Bilak, Czech typographer and editor.

There is a free talks programme including:

• Robots and Technology – taking a look at current Robotics, to coincide with Morton:Underwood’s creative residency
• Glass Lantern Slides – in the lead up to Flatpack’s Box of Light weekend, a rare chance to look at the Library’s collection of glass lanterns
• Social Aspect of Transport – presenting some of the LoB’s internationally renowned railway collection – exploring the changes in social dynamics as a result of the emerging transport system.

There’s LOADS more in the programme. So here’s another reminder to go and have a look through it.

Not part of the Discovery Season programme, but excellent in its own right, and in the near future: 13th-22nd September is the Still Walking Festival and they have just announced their full programme.

I really enjoyed walking around and seeing the new spaces. I especially liked the children’s library decorated with illustrations, the colour block book rotunda, and the rooftop terraces filled with fragrant flowers, which have already attracted lots of bees! There’s also a really good view of the Central Library from the new Library too…

Events start on Tuesday at the LoB as part of the four month long celebration Discovery Season, curated by Capsule. Have a flick through the programme for more information about the events. (I’ll be covering some of them on CiB.)

Here are a few of my photos from my explore below. If you’d like to see better photos then I’d recommend the Dezeen article, which includes the LoB designers’ Mecanoo’s concepts, thoughts and intentions for the building. Or you could head over for the opening on Tuesday and see it for yourself!

Thanks to the Library of Birmingham and Podnosh for letting me have a look around.