"We're very thrilled. We've needed this facility," said Richard E. Turley Jr., managing director of the Family and Church History department. "Most people think that paper and film and so forth last forever. They do not. . . . This building is designed specifically for this purpose."

The new building will put emphasis on environmental controls, such as temperature, humidity and lighting, to preserve materials that deteriorate with age. He did not know cost but said it will be substantial.

"We (church membership) have grown from probably 5 million to 12 million while we've been in the current Church Office Building," which was dedicated in the early '70s, said Elder Marlin K. Jensen, a member of the First Quorum of the Seventy who serves as church historian and recorder. "You name it, we store it here if it has to do with the history of the church."

Many employees and missionaries who work and serve in the Church History Library attended the dedication and expressed their excitement over the new building.

"It's going to be awesome. It's been a long time coming," said Jo Lyn Curtis, a church history employee for 14 years, who described the current space as cramped. "I've been talking about it ever since I started working."

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