The Elisabeth Orphanage in the town centre of Culemborg was built in 1560 and was the first newly-built orphanage in the Netherlands. The orphanage and the accompanying farm were recently completely renovated and linked to each other. The new building is home to the Elisabeth Orphanage Museum, the Adult Education Centre, the Orphans’ Café and, in the former boys’ wing, the Culemborg Library. Bieb Systems designed the library interior.

Corien Mosselman of the Rivierenland Library tells us about the interior design of the library and the collaboration with Bieb Systems.

Special location

“Rivierenland Library has 17 branches. Most of those branches were either relocated during the past few years or are due to be relocated. During every relocation, we adopt the retail structure (frontal positioning of the books). The new location of the Culemborg Library was something special. The Elisabeth Orphanage is a beautiful listed building that was largely restored to its original condition during the renovation.

We’ve worked with Bieb Systems a number of times. In this case, they submitted the best tender. We used Architects Jos de Vries – The Retail Company for the interior design. It was a great design, but we soon discovered that certain things simply weren’t possible in the building. Thankfully, Bieb Systems came up with some clever solutions.

Made-to-measure library furniture

“Bieb Systems really think along with you. They design and manufacture made-to-measure furniture. For Culemborg, for example, they designed a tablet desk in the same style as the interior design. The desks are ideal for lessons in how to use iPads, Android tablets and eReaders.

At 120 schools in the region, we’ve installed mobile library bookcases that were designed and manufactured by Bieb Systems. The text ‘Library at school’ is displayed on top of each bookcase. The bookcases and collections have been a great success.

The finishing touch

Bieb Systems do exactly what they say they’ll do. And they never forget the finishing touch. On the day of the opening, everything was ready for the public. In short, they’re a really reliable partner. We’ll definitely work with them again.”