Moving out of the national library building in Tõnismäe will begin in the end of November and the replacement rooms are scheduled to open in the beginning of 2021.

"We currently see that it could be possible in the first half of January," said national library spokesperson Argo Kerb, adding that the library is planning to open a so-called pop-up library point in the Solaris shopping center in September to alleviate disruptions to their services.

Kerb noted however that the temporary rooms will be much smaller in capacity. "We have searched and assessed replacement rooms for more than a year and other office buildings in other city districts have been on the table, but the Narva maantee rooms met our needs the best and the location is in the city center," he added.

"We will offer a lion's share of our regular services at the temporary rooms, we will certainly allow borrowing and on-site consumption, use of computers, personal counseling and answering inquiries," he explained and added that more emphasis will be put on visiting schools in educational activities. "Our digital services will also become more important, we want to open a public e-borrowing service next year and a nationwide borrowing service."

Kerb noted that access to the national library's collections will diminish for the renovation period. "Everything except for public collections will be packed up and taken for archiving elsewhere," he said.

€53 million has been allocated to the reconstruction of the National Library of Estonia in the government's state budget strategy and the renovated building in Tõnismäe is scheduled to open by 2025.

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