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| Libraries of the University of Cambridge | |
|---|---|
| Name | Libraries of the University of Cambridge |
| Caption | Wren Library, Trinity College, Cambridge |
| Established | 1416 (University Library founding year) |
| Location | Cambridge, England |
| Type | Academic library system |
| Collection size | over 8 million items (est.) |
| Director | University Librarian (office) |
Libraries of the University of Cambridge constitute a network of collegiate, faculty, departmental and central research libraries associated with University of Cambridge, serving students, fellows, researchers and the public. The system encompasses historic institutions such as the Cambridge University Library and college libraries including King's College, Cambridge, Trinity College, Cambridge and St John's College, Cambridge, and supports disciplines linked to institutions like Faculty of History, University of Cambridge, Department of Physics, University of Cambridge, Judge Business School and Cambridge University Press. The libraries hold manuscripts, printed books, maps and archives relevant to figures such as Isaac Newton, Charles Darwin, Alan Turing, John Milton and William Wordsworth.
The library network comprises the central Cambridge University Library, over 100 college libraries including Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, Gonville and Caius College, Emmanuel College, Cambridge and subject libraries like the Seeley Library for Faculty of History, University of Cambridge, the Squire Law Library for Faculty of Law, University of Cambridge, the Medical Library for School of Clinical Medicine, University of Cambridge and the Biochemistry Library for Department of Biochemistry, University of Cambridge. Holdings span printed works connected to Early Modern period, manuscripts tied to Reformation, maps relevant to Age of Discovery, archives from entities such as Cambridge University Press and papers of scholars like John Maynard Keynes, J. J. Thomson and H. G. Wells.
The origins trace to early collegiate collections in institutions such as Peterhouse, Cambridge and the foundation of the central library during the reign of King Henry V; the system later expanded through donations from figures including Richard Bentley and Lord Acton. The central repository, relocated to a purpose-built site in the 1930s and reconstructed after damage during Second World War, accumulated legal deposit privileges akin to systems in British Library contexts and developed special collections through acquisitions like the papers of E. M. Forster, correspondence of Elizabeth Barrett Browning and archives of Royal Society fellows. Twentieth-century developments involved integration with departmental collections for units such as Cavendish Laboratory and responses to policy from bodies like Higher Education Funding Council for England.
Principal repositories include the central Cambridge University Library, the medieval Wren-designed library at Trinity College, Cambridge, the gothic holdings at King's College, Cambridge and the collegiate treasuries of St John's College, Cambridge and Magdalene College, Cambridge. Subject collections feature the Sainsbury Laboratory allied collections for Department of Plant Sciences, University of Cambridge, the Whipple Museum of the History of Science-related holdings, the South Asia Archive within area studies linked to Centre of South Asian Studies, University of Cambridge, and the Fletcher Fund-supported rare volumes connected to explorers like James Cook. Notable named collections include the papers of Charles Darwin, notebooks of Isaac Newton, codebreakers' materials associated with Bletchley Park figures such as Alan Turing, and musical manuscripts tied to Benjamin Britten.
Services include reader registration governed by statutes of University of Cambridge, inter-library loan arrangements with partners such as British Library and digitisation collaborations involving institutions like Cambridge University Press and the National Archives (United Kingdom). Readers use discovery tools aligned with initiatives from Jisc and library management systems used across UK research libraries; services cover research support for projects funded by bodies like Wellcome Trust, training programmes linked to Council for the Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences initiatives, and conservation treatments overseen with expertise comparable to that at the Victoria and Albert Museum conservation departments.
Special collections encompass medieval manuscripts, early printed books including incunabula, cartographic materials from voyages such as those by Ferdinand Magellan and James Cook, and modern archives documenting figures like Ludwig Wittgenstein, R. G. Collingwood and A. J. P. Taylor. The archives hold institutional records from colleges including Pembroke College, Cambridge and scientific correspondence from laboratories such as the Cavendish Laboratory, alongside political papers related to statesmen like Winston Churchill and legal collections connected to jurists like Lord Denning. Conservation and palaeography expertise supports scholarship on items ranging from Domesday Book-era manuscripts to twentieth-century typescripts by Virginia Woolf.
Digitisation programmes have produced online access to collections including Darwin's manuscripts, Newton's notebooks and medieval charters, in partnerships with organisations like Google Books, Arts and Humanities Research Council and the Europeana network. Digital services deliver institutional repositories for theses associated with Cambridge University Technical Services, metadata exposed to aggregators such as Digital Public Library of America-style initiatives, and platform delivery using software common to research libraries supported by Jisc. Projects target born-digital archives from research centres like Scott Polar Research Institute and facilitate computational access for scholars in fields linked to Department of Computer Science and Technology, University of Cambridge.
Governance is exercised through the office of the University Librarian and committees reporting to the Council of the University of Cambridge and collegiate bodies such as Heads of Colleges. Funding derives from a mix of university allocations, endowments from benefactors like Trinity College, Cambridge benefactors and legacy gifts from individuals such as Lord Acton, grant awards from funders including Arts and Humanities Research Council and Wellcome Trust, and income-generating services comparable to publishing revenues of Cambridge University Press. Strategic planning engages with national policy makers including Research England and consortia such as the Cambridge University Libraries Consortium.
Category:Libraries in Cambridgeshire Category:University of Cambridge