STELIB:: A library of stellar spectra at R ∼ 2000

We present STELIBstar, a new spectroscopic stellar library, available at http://webast.ast.obs-mip.fr/stelib. STELIB consists of an homogeneous library of 249 stellar spectra in the visible range (3200 to 9500 Angstrom), with an intermediate spectral resolution (less than or similar to3 Angstrom) and sampling (1 Angstrom). This library includes stars of various spectral types and luminosity classes, spanning a relatively wide range in metallicity. The spectral resolution, wavelength and spectral type coverage of this library represents a substantial improvement over previous libraries used in population synthesis models. The overall absolute photometric uncertainty is 3%.