Services
Introduction
Ordering rare books
Book fetching
Reservations
Borrowing
Transfer of material
Catalogues
Enquiries
Reference works
Handling of rare books
Photocopying and
other imaging services
Microform readers
Collator
Laptops and wireless networking
Introduction
The Rare Books Room is open to readers from 09:30 to 18:50 Monday to Friday and from 09:30 to 16:30 on Saturdays. It is reserved for readers who wish to consult certain categories of printed material: (a) closed access books printed before 1900, with the exception of items in specialist classes Atlas, NPR, OP, etc.; (b) closed access periodicals printed before 1850; (c) other rare and valuable printed items of later date; (d) books from classes which contain a high proportion of valuable material, and from special collections, e.g. class Cam, which contains works of Cambridge interest; (e) items from deposited collections and libraries. More information on the rare book classes is available through the Collections directory.
Ordering rare books
The Finding List has the direction 'Order in Rare Books Room' for all such material. Items from these classes are fetched to the Room by a member of staff upon the proper completion of a Rare Books Room order form and must under no circumstances be removed from the Room.
Order forms for rare book material should be made out in full and handed to staff at the Desk. All readers ordering rare book material must show to staff a valid Readers' Card.
We do not generally accept requests made by phone, letter or email. Occasional exceptions can be made for readers from outside Cambridge coming a long distance for a short time, but no more than two items may be fetched in advance. In all cases, readers must supply a full postal address with their request, and must produce a valid Readers' Card when collecting the material. Email requests should be sent to rarebooks@lib.cam.ac.uk.
Book fetching
Items will be fetched as quickly as possible, but delays are inevitable at certain times of day (especially 12:30–14:15 and 17:15–18:20) and during busy periods. Orders submitted after 18:20 (16:00 on Saturdays) will be fetched on the next working day.
Books fetched are kept for five days before being sent back to the shelf. When collecting their order, readers must sign a receipt for each item on the appropriate part of the order form; they are held responsible for these items until they have been returned to the Staff Desk. Readers returning books must wait at the Desk until staff have checked the items against the signed receipts, which will then be handed back to them.
Reservations
Readers who wish to reserve rare book items for further use should hand them to the staff, together with a completed blue reservation slip validly dated. They will receive in return the signed receipts, which they should retain and present to the staff when they next wish to consult the reserved material. Reserved books are normally held for five days. Reference works from the open shelves in the Room may not be reserved. Books in use from the Library's open access classes may be reserved by the entrance to the Room on completion of a red reservation slip, although space here is limited.
Borrowing
Items from rare book classes and special collections are generally not borrowable, though exceptions may be made for a small proportion of post-1899 publications. Some reference books from B10-B990 may also be borrowed. All enquiries concerning borrowing should be made to the Superintendents of the Room who will refer the matter to senior members of the Department. Please note, it may not be possible to prepare material for loan immediately and readers may be asked to return later the same day, or on a Monday if a loan is requested on a Saturday.
Transfer of material
It is usually possible to arrange for the temporary transfer of reference works to another specialist reading room for use in conjunction with material fetched there, and for similar transfers of books (but not manuscripts) to the Rare Books Room. The Superintendents may also arrange for items from rare book classes to be transferred to the Manuscripts Room, but not to any other reading room. Readers may occasionally be asked to consult a volume in the Rare Books Room which has not been designated as a Rare Books item on the Finding List.
Catalogues
Records for most rare books should now be on the online catalogue Newton. However, classmarks of some items can be traced only through the use of the Supplementary Catalogues, and other catalogues and card-index files available in the Rare Books Room, including guides to the Library's collections of almanacs, broadside ballads and chapbooks. Further information is given in an information leaflet available in the Room and on our Specialist catalogues webpage. Readers who wish to consult incunabula (books printed before 1501) should ask at the Staff Desk for the annotated copy of J.C.T. Oates Catalogue of the fifteenth-century printed books in the University Library Cambridge. Copies of STC (Pollard & Redgrave) and Wing, interleaved with Library classmarks, may also be consulted on application to the Staff Desk.
Enquiries
Enquiries concerning rare book material should be made at the Staff Desk and will then, if necessary, be referred to appropriate specialist staff. (Problems with the Pre-1978 General and Supplementary Catalogues should usually be raised at the Catalogue Enquiries Desk or in the main Reading Room.) During the lunch-hour (12:45–14:00), the evening (after 17:20) and on Saturdays, fewer members of staff are on duty; it may not be possible to deal satisfactorily with specialist queries at these times.
Reference works
The open-access shelves of the Room contain some reference works on general subjects and specialist reference works for rare books. They are in a classified sequence with the classmark B10–B990; a subject index to the reference works is also available. A card catalogue for these works stands in the room in front of the glass partition. All such books are also catalogued in Newton, the online catalogue. No reference work may be taken from the Room without the permission of the Superintendent. There are workstations in the Room where readers may search online and CD-ROM databases, including the Bodleian and British Library Catalogues and the English Short Title Catalogue.
Handling of rare books
Readers are reminded that they should handle rare
book material with the greatest care. Book-rests are available on all desks
and should be used in most cases, particularly with large volumes. Open volumes
should not be placed on top of one another and should not be leant upon. Book
weights ("snakes") are available from the reading room staff to hold books
open. Pencil only must be used in the Room. Pencils can be bought at the
Staff Desk, in the Manuscripts Reading Room and in the Library Tea Room.
Marking of books is forbidden.
Photocopying and other imaging services
Information and advice concerning the reproduction of rare book and reference material can be obtained at the Staff Desk. All imaging services requests are referred to senior members of the Department, who have the discretion to refuse any order which they consider likely to damage the material involved.
Self-service photography in Maps, Manuscripts and Rare Books Reading Rooms. Readers may use their own cameras to take still photographs of material in the Manuscripts, Maps and Rare Books Reading Rooms. If you wish to take your own photographs you must first speak to staff on the desk and read the information sheets on self-service photography and copyright provided. Photographs may be taken for non-commercial research or private study only. Photography in other areas of the Library is not permitted.
Cameras and camera phones must be hand-held, and must be capable of being set to 'silent'. SLRs, tripods, 'mini-pods', hand-held scanners and flash photography are not permitted. Please note also that some collections are subject to restrictions and may not be photographed; staff will provide guidance on this.
Please see our full guidelines for further information.
Photocopying can also be done by the staff of the Department; small orders will usually be ready for collection on the following day, but large orders (for which staff may ask for payment in advance) can take several days. Completed orders for photocopies should be collected and paid for in the Rare Books Room. Orders may be submitted or despatched by post, but these will incur a minimum charge; telephone orders cannot be accepted, but orders may be emailed to rarebooks@lib.cam.ac.uk. Other imaging services work can be carried out by staff of the Imaging Services department. Details of services and prices are available on the Imaging Services webpages.
Microform readers
Printed and online guides to the STC, Wing, Thomason Tracts and ESTC microfilm series are available in the Room; the films should be ordered at the Staff Desk. Microform readers are available in an annexe to the Munby Rare Books Room. Microforms should not be left on the machines overnight, but should be placed on reserve at the Staff Desk.
Collator
The Department owns a McLeod Portable Collator - anyone wishing to use it should contact us in advance, so it can be set up. A member of staff will inspect the volumes involved and advise on the operation of the machine. Further information on the collator can be found in an article by Daniel Zalewski for Lingua Franca.
Laptops and wireless networking
Readers may use laptop computers in the Room provided
that they exercise proper consideration for other readers. Plug sockets are
provided in all the desks, and readers may plug their computers in directly.
Users of computers with two-pin plugs will need an adaptor, which can be
borrowed from the Staff Desk. Access to the Lapwing wireless network is available in the Room for current staff and students of the University of Cambridge with a Raven password. More details are given in the help information at http://www.cam.ac.uk/cs/wireless/. Other readers can apply for access via a time-limited ticket: see http://www.lib.cam.ac.uk/itfacilities/lapwing_ticket.html for further information.