  The design, implementation and analysis of a free library for boundary
element calculations is presented. The library is free in the sense of the GNU
General Public Licence and is intended to allow users to solve a wide range of
problems using the boundary element method. The library incorporates a fast
multipole method which is tailored to boundary elements of order higher than
zero, taking account of the finite extent of the elements in the generation of
the domain tree. The method is tested on a sphere and on a cube, to test its
ability to handle sharp edges, and is found to be accurate, efficient and
convergent.
