'TREMENDOUS' and 'lovely' were the comments of the first people to use the new Tavistock library this week.

The first person through the doors at 9.30am on Monday was Colin Langman of Tavistock. He was impressed with the size of the place compared with the old building.

'It's tremendous; a lovely library,' he said.

Early arrival Douglas Craig thought it was 'very good indeed' and 'such a change' from the old library, although he had some reservation over the lack of free parking nearby.

He thought he would just borrow books at present rather than use any other facilities provided.

Albert and Jessie Fry also voiced their concerns about parking, as they both have mobility problems, but Mr Fry said the library itself was very good. Mrs Fry was kept busy trying to find her way around the vast array of books.

Pamela Dale commented on the 'lovely light and airy' building. 'It gives a good feeling of space. It's great,' she said.

Mrs Dale added that she would probably have a trial run on the computers at some stage prior to becoming involved with the Internet at home.

The first book issued was to Mr M Brown of Tavistock, who obviously had no problem finding his way around the extensive shelves.

At the end of the first day Moira Andrews, librarian-in-charge, described it as 'manic'.

'We haven't stopped all day and the people have been queued out the door,' she said. 'We have joined a lot of new members and the majority of people have been full of praise for the building and the efforts of the staff.'

Moira said the public had been 'brilliant' and some had brought flowers and wine.

Not all of the facilities are in place yet and Moira asks people to bear with them for a short while. 'Some of the computers don't have power, so there have been queues of people waiting to retrieve two weeks' worth of e-mails,' she said.

There were a few problems with the security alarm repeatedly going off as people returned books which had not been sensitised, but this was only a temporary annoyance, said Moira.

'It has been so much fun for the staff that they didn't go to lunch!' she said.