Using the Library

Tea Room cheese scones

Francis Bacon (1561-1626)

A library notice, 1834

Among aids to study, the new Library has provided the most vital, a Tea Room, nowadays alongside on-line catalogues, classes on using the collections, facilities for photocopying, interlibrary loans and regular exhibitions. Some few readers have stolen books, others have got lost, enjoyed romantic assignations in the stacks or organised ‘work-ins’ and refused to leave. The majority value the breadth of the collections and the ease with which they may locate and consult what they want for research or education, be it illuminated manuscripts, official government publications or the latest on-line database.

600 years of
Cambridge
University
Library

8 October 2002 - 15 March 2003
Admission free

The freedom to browse along open shelves and to borrow have long been features of the University Library, unusual among legal deposit libraries. Until 1875, the Library was the exclusive preserve of graduates who had to swear an oath of good behaviour prior to admission. But curriculum and teaching reform elicited calls for broader book provision and, with the arrival of undergraduates, demands were also met for a general reading room, gas lighting, heating and extended opening hours.

Studying in the stacks