The old Swansea Central Library in Swansea in Britain was a public lending and reference library located in Alexandra Road, in the Swansea city centre.
The library was designed by Henry Holtom of Dewsbury in the Italian classical style and opened in 1887 by the former and future Prime Minister William Ewart Gladstone. The circular reference library, 86 feet (26 m) in diameter, has a domed top, 25 feet (7.6 m) feet high in the centre. The collections provided a repository of source material for research on Swansea in particular and Wales in general. The Dylan Thomas Collection, established in the early 1950s, consisted of over 3,000 books and periodical articles written by, or about, the Swansea-born poet and author.[1]
The library was closed in November 2007. After its closure, the interior of the library building, including the domed reading room, was used extensively by BBC Wales as a location for the Doctor Who episodes "Silence in the Library" and "Forest of the Dead". The new Swansea Central Library, opened in March 2008, is located in the Civic Centre alongside the West Glamorgan Archives Service.[2]
Swansea Metropolitan University's strategic plan for 2007 stated that "detailed discussions are taking place with the City & County of Swansea with a view to the Institute acquiring the Old Central Library building in Alexandra Road".[3] The old library building is now occupied by Swansea Metropolitan University's Welsh School of Architectural Glass.[4]