Building the Library

Lewis Carroll
(1832-98)

September, 1933. The new University Library building at Cambridge being constructed under the design of architect
Sir Giles Gilbert Scott, who also designed the classic telephone kiosk.

By the late 19th century, the Library had encroached upon all floors, not only around the Schools courtyard but also that of the Old Court of King’s College to its west, bought in 1829. Further enlargement and rebuilding of this courtyard provided only temporary respite from overcrowding. How could the Library’s space problems be solved?

Moving the Library to a new site, in ‘the suburbs’, was the option decided upon in 1921. Sir Hugh Anderson, Master of Caius 1912-28, masterminded the project; acquiring a seven acre playing field from King’s and Clare Colleges, raising the funds from the University and the Rockefeller Foundation and negotiating with architect Sir Giles Gilbert Scott; he of the red telephone box and Bankside Power Station, better known as Tate Modern. His design insisted on the continued ability of readers to browse the majority of the Library’s books in well -lit open access stacks; on the integration of the old (antique oak Royal Library bookcases) with the new (in corridors floored with geometrically decorated linoleum) and on the need for a ‘dominating feature’ in the shape of the tower. Construction began in September 1931and took three years to complete. Over the summer of 1934, in time for the royal opening in October, the entire contents of the Library, packed into some 23,725 boxes, were transported from the centre of the city and rearranged along the new and capacious metal shelves.

600 years of
Cambridge
University
Library

8 October 2002 - 15 March 2003
Admission free

The first floor rooms in the south and east ranges of the Schools proved sufficient to accommodate the Library for 200 years. However, during the early 17th century several schemes proposed that Cambridge build a new library to rival that at Oxford University, recently refurbished and enlarged by Sir Thomas Bodley. Planning continued into the 18th century, its urgency increased by the arrival of the 30,000 strong Royal Library in 1715. In the event, no new library accommodation was erected until the Cockerell Building in 1837-42.

Instead, the story was one of books: whether acquired by donation, legal deposit or purchase - effecting the gradual but total eviction of all other University activities from the central site.

Watercolour showing the Cockerell building being built in 1837 - 1842. The shelves are depicted as being full of books, even as the walls are being constructed.