On the Oude Boteringestraat in Groningen the moving carts are ready, at
the Hereplein they are planning a farewell film party. The library and cinema will soon exchange their familiar accommodations for the brand-new Forum.

'No way,' Marc Rupert says decidedly when asked if he will miss 18 Old Butteringestraat. He is especially looking forward to his new workplace. His colleague Maurice Laros is less adamant. "I haven't actually had time to think about it yet. Probably later in the Forum the realization that we're out of here will come."

Rupert and Laros both deal with the Forum's collection of books, DVDs, games and magazines - some 95,000 in all. As of 8:30 Monday morning, some twenty employees pack them all. Not in boxes, but on special carts: a kind of small bookcases on wheels.

"Look, you have three meters of shelf on either side," Rupert says, showing a picture of one such smart cart on his phone. "That's where we slide the books in so that we can easily put them in their new place in the Forum."

On the desk of Laros, who is coordinating the move, there are already dozens of stickers and labels ready: they say "poetry," or "novels," or "youth," and a letter and number code. Each genre will soon end up on its own cart in the moving van. "That will actually be the biggest challenge," Rupert suspects, "getting that truck through downtown." It's a chicken's length from the Old Boteringestraat to the New Market, but it's a chicken's length away from where the road is currently being worked on. But oh well - so it takes a little longer, they drink an extra cup of coffee. Laros and Rupert take a relaxed view. "It's a lot of materials we have to move, but it's all pretty concrete and manageable: books into the cart, books out of the cart again." By the end of Tuesday, the moving operation should be complete.

The other library branches - in four urban districts and Haren, Hoogkerk and Ten Boer - will remain open as usual, by the way. "Reservations can be picked up at the branch in Selwerd during the moving days."

Cabinets, desks, chairs and the like all don't have to come with us. "In the Forum we will get new furniture," communication advisor Else de Groot knows. The building on Oude Boteringestraat is already owned by the University of Groningen; it will use it when the library moves out. "The old furniture will go to our library branches and the Hanzehogeschool, and what remains after that will go to a buyer."

In the Forum, the books will be in built-in cabinets. "We actually wanted flexible cabinets, but that wasn't possible," Rupert says. Everything, down to the bookshelves, had to be earthquake-proof at the Forum, it turned out in 2016. Along with failed tenders, financial struggles and arguments between the municipality and province, that caused construction to be delayed.

"How long have they been working on it?" wonders De Groot aloud. "For years," Laros replies. All that time the employees have been living towards the move, making plans for what it should look like. Rupert: "Ten years ago we were already drawing bookcases on the first plans."

At the Forum, the collection will have about the same amount of closet space available as it does now. "Only it will be distributed over a much larger building," says De Groot. Rupert: "People often ask: where is the library going to be?" The answer is actually: anywhere in the Forum.

Floors 3 and 8 will be in their entirety for the collection. "But our DVDs and books on technology, for example, will be at the SmartLab," Laros says. "And our DVDs and books on film at the movie theaters."

In mid-November, the Film House will move from Hereplein to the Forum. All five movie theaters in the Forum, ranging in size from 30 to 175 seats, have new canvases. Some of the Hereplein's equipment will go with it, but much has been depreciated. On Sunday, Nov. 17, the movie theater will be open for the last time, with a special mini-film festival: Good Bye, Hereplein! "A reference to the film Good Bye, Lenin!," explains programmer Ruben Allersma. In fact, that film is incorporated into the Forum building: the bar of the film café is wrapped with an old-fashioned 35-millimeter celluloid copy of Good Bye, Lenin! "So if you drink a beer there, somewhere at the level of your knee you will see pictures from the film."

To say goodbye to its old spot, the movie house is re-releasing fifteen audience favorites from nine years of cinema-on-the-Hereplein. "Visitors could indicate via a special e-mail address which films they would like to see again," says Allersma. "We are screening those from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. in our three theaters." The farewell program is "a mix of everything. "It includes a Von Trier, Melancholia, a beautiful animated film, The Red Turtle, we have the romantic comedy Le fabuleux destin d'Amelie Poulain and also Drive, an action film."

The full program will be announced by the cinema on Monday. The usual rates apply for tickets.