SALT LAKE CITY -- After a four-year construction process, the gleaming new Church History Library of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is just days away from opening its doors.

The 230,000-square-foot facility, located next to the church's massive Conference Center on the northeast corner of the intersection of Main Street and North Temple street in Salt Lake City, will be open for public tours today and Saturday. It is scheduled to be dedicated by church leadership on June 20 and will commence regular hours of operation on June 22.

Elder Marlin K. Jensen, the incumbent Church Historian, told media members on Thursday that the new building was designed to "entice" visitors, both from inside and outside the LDS Church, and "make them feel welcome."

After donning special white gloves, Jensen displayed a sampling of the items that will be stored at the new facility, including a first-edition copy of the Book of Mormon, a volume of sacred scripture that Latter-day Saints believe was translated from ancient records by church founder Joseph Smith Jr. The copy exhibited by Jensen, one of an estimated 600 or so first-edition copies believed to be still in existence, was inscribed by James Moyle, an early church member.

Jensen also showed a copy of the LDS Spanish-language translation of the Bible, which isn't even available to the general public yet, saying that it represents that keeping track of church history is an ongoing pursuit.

Other items displayed included a scrapbook detailing some of the activities of former church president Ezra Taft Benson, an 1835 hymnal given by early LDS printer William W. Phelps to his wife, Sally, and a single-volume dual translation of the Book of Mormon with French and German text on facing pages.

Jensen, who learned to speak German while he was a church proselytizing missionary, read several verses of the German text aloud. "I'll have to go home and gargle for three minutes," he said, joking about his somewhat rusty language skills.

Certain items stored at the library, including some documents considered either sacred, private (for legal reasons) or confidential, will not be generally accessible. But Jensen said that the church hopes many people will visit the new facility, both to peruse the information available there, and to forge a personal connection to past events.

"The vast bulk of our collection," he said, "is available and accessible to the general public."

• The new Church History Library will be profiled in the Daily Herald Life & Style section on June 20.