Two-hundred square metres, space for 10,000 volumes, and a large archival storage facility, the ITER library has been scaled to meet the project's needs over the 20-year exploitation of the ITER device.
The library's on-line service offers 24-hour access to a user-driven selection of online journals, over 15,000 e-books, and a catalogue of the resources held at ITER. These are resources that can be accessed from any ITER computer, but having a physical library space (and not just a virtual space) is equally important, according to Daniele. "With all of the electronic resources today, libraries have fewer 'human' resources. But the role of the librarian becomes even more important in this context."
Daniele Parravicini, section leader for Document Control (right) and Saroj Das, ITER librarian (left), during the library inauguration on Friday 11 January.
In 2013, the 30 cubic metres of ITER archives that have been stored for the past three years in an off-site facility will be repatriated to the new archival facility in the Headquarters building. When that task is completed, the library will be the unique repository for ITER Project history in-the-making, with conference proceedings dating back to the early engineering design (EDA) days, historical agreements, and papers documenting the last 45 years of fusion research—a "granary" where the collective knowledge on the ITER Project is stored and organized. 
