The West Virginia University Book Depository will be officially dedicated at a ceremony at 10:30 a.m. Thursday, Oct. 5. The public is invited.

The $2.8 million building was completed last spring and began storing books this summer. Very old books and ones that have not been used in 10 years will be kept there on rows of 30-foot-high shelves in the environmentally controlled building.

By next summer, nearly more than 125,000 books will be moved to the new building, which is located off of Route 705 at the old WVU poultry farm.

Speakers will be President David C. Hardesty, Provost Gerald Lang, Library Dean Frances OBrien and Carroll Wilkinson, head of Circulation Services.

“We hope everyone will visit this new facility and learn how books are stored and retrieved for use,”said Frances OBrien, library dean. Libraries across the country are building depositories because of the abundance of materials and overcrowding, she said.