Welcome to the Special Collections Reading Room. All of the Library's Special Collections are consulted here, with the exception of Maps.
Basic procedures
- Please sign in at the entry point the first time you come into the room each day. Due to staff changes across the day, you may be asked to do this more than once and we appreciate your patience with our team in ensuring the security of the room.
- Please wash and dry your hands before working with Special Collections materials, and before and after taking refreshment breaks.
- No food or drink is permitted in the Reading Room. Please leave these items in the cloakroom. You are welcome to use the Tea Room or courtyards for refreshment breaks.
- Coats and bags (including see-through Library carrier bags) must be left outside the room. We recommend leaving items in the main locker room off the Library entrance hall. There is also a limited number of lockers available outside the Reading Room for use while consulting Special Collections.
- The Room is kept at a constant 20 degrees all year round: some visitors find this cold and we recommend wearing layers to ensure your comfort. Please be aware that coats and outdoor wear are not allowed into the Room for security reasons.
- Please use only pencils and computers for taking notes. Pens, highlighters and sticky notes are not permitted.
- Please support items while reading them. Bookstands, cushions and weights are provided. Please see our guidelines for handling Special Collections material. Staff are happy to help with this.
Enquiries
The staff at the desk will be happy to help readers with any enquiries or information concerning the services that are available in the Reading Room. Reading Room staff will also pass on more specialist enquiries to the relevant curators.
Reserving material
Items can be reserved for five days as standard, or longer if necessary on request. Please hand your material to staff at the desk with a completed reservation slip for each item with the current date. You should keep the receipts for these items and give them to the staff when you next wish to consult the reserved material.
Laptops and wireless networking
Readers may use laptops in the Room at any desk. There are power sockets under the wooden flaps at the centre of the tables and adaptors are available at the Staff Desk if needed. Access to the eduroam wireless network is available in the Room for current staff and students of the University of Cambridge with a Raven password and members of applicable higher education institutions. Other users of the Library are welcome to use the UniOfCam-Guest wireless network, by selecting the Library reader option and logging in.
Photography and other imaging services
Readers may use their own cameras to take still photographs of most material fetched to the Reading Room. If you wish to take your own photographs you must first speak to staff on the desk, who will assess the suitability of the material; they may refuse a request if there is the potential for damage to the item. Photographs may be taken for non-commercial research or private study only.
Cameras and camera phones must be hand-held, and must be capable of being set to silent mode. SLRs, tripods, 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.
The Library's Cultural Heritage Imaging Laboratory (CHIL) can provide high quality images of collection items for publication or other purposes, depending on the condition of material. Details of services and prices are available on their webpages.
A conservation-standard overhead scanner is available in the Reading Room to produce low-resolution research images of printed material fetched to the room. It is not permitted to scan manuscript or archival material. Images can be saved as JPG or PDF and there is the option to use OCR on texts while saving PDFs; the files can be emailed, or saved to a USB drive. Readers must check with staff each time they wish to use the scanner, as books must be assessed first to ensure they are suitable, and staff may refuse permission if a book is in fragile condition or too large for the scanner. Images produced on the scanner are for personal use only. For publication-quality images please use the CHIL imaging service
Reference books
The shelves in the Reading Room contain published reference works relating to manuscripts, archives and printed books. All of these are catalogued online. They should not be removed from the room. Some reference works are kept in store but can be fetched to the room. Please ask staff if you cannot find the reference works you need. The books are arranged in two classified sequences with the classmarks A100-A690 for material relating to manuscripts and archives and with the classmarks B10-B990 for those relating to printed books; a subject index to the latter is also available.
Ultraviolet Light
Ultraviolet lamps, a cold light source and light sheets for viewing watermarks are available. Please ask staff if you wish to use any of these; they can advise on correct operation.
Microfilms and Microfiches
The Library's collection of microfilms and microfiches can be read on machines in the annexe of the Reading Room. Please ask staff for details.
The image above is from Thomas Rowlandson's infamous cartoon of The Public Library at Cambridge.