The new State Library, Archives and Museum will open June 6, according to Linda Thibodeau, director of the state division of libraries, archives and museums.
The news was first announced in the division’s Friday newsletter.
“We’re just kind of doing save-the-date now,” Thibodeau said, adding that official invitations to the grand-opening ceremony haven’t been posted.
June 6 will be the 116th anniversary of the division, which was established by an act of Congress as the Alaska Historical Library and Museum on that date in 1900.
“We’re not exactly sure what the whole agenda’s going to be” on that date, Thibodeau said, but a ribbon-cutting, cake and brief speeches are expected.
“We want a lot of people there,” she said.
The SLAM ─ officially known as the Father Andrew P. Kashevaroff State Library, Archives and Museum Building ─ had been scheduled to open in May, but Thibodeau said the project is “pretty close to schedule.”
The $138.4 million project (a sum that includes the land as well as the construction) was funded primarily with state money appropriated by the Legislature up to 2014.
She added that the building may hold a soft opening as a test run before the official opening.
The existing state library and its historical collections department ─ housed on the eighth floor of the State Office Building ─ will close April 18 to accommodate the move.
• Contact reporter James Brooks at james.k.brooks@juneauempire.com.
