Pages of city’s history brought to life at centre
worked in the corner window space on the ground floor, hiding 10 elephants for people to spot.
On the first floor, guests will be able to access a performance area for talks from authors, historians and experts or join in courses such as floristry, silk work and other workshops.
There will be a bank of computers up and running in one room to help people research, access education courses or to simply access the internet.
A conference room for up to 10 people can be hired, while quiet space is set aside for those who want to study.
Sunderland City Council’s library team will also be working alongside The Regional Oral History Centre: Living History North East and audio producer Jay Sykes to create podcasts.
Artist Mark Burns Cassell has also been asked to link in with the centre.
Allison Clarke, librarian manager, said a huge amount of work is going into the centre to get it ready its launch.
Allison added: “It’s going to be great for people, but also for our staff as well.
“We’ll be able to expand the history books we have in stock here and show them how to use them. We don't expect everybody to be able to find what they need, so there’ll always be someone on hand to help them.
“Basically, anything people need to know about Sunderland, this will be their first step to finding that out.
“If we don’t have it or know about it, we know somebody who will.
“We’ll be open six days a week, closed on Sunday, and we’ll have a late-night opening on Wednesday.
“We want people to come in and use us. We think it’s so important that we look at yesterday, today and tomorrow to appreciate it.”
The city council last week announced the official opening date had been delayed by system problems.