The Library Storage Facility has 106 km of shelving (distance from Cambridge to London); items are shelved and retrieved using forklift trucks. The highest shelf is 11 metres (two adult giraffes) and the capacity of the store is 45,500 m3 (18 Olympic swimming pools).

The Library Storage Facility provides long-term storage for low use printed material acquired by the University Library, affiliated libraries and other faculty and departmental libraries of the University.  It also houses some map collections in plan chests. 

Further collections will be added over time, ensuring that the last print copy of Cambridge Library holdings is retained as a University asset for future research, even if no longer required by the original holding library.

Items from the Library Storage Facility cannot be borrowed by readers and it is not open to readers: there are no facilities for consulting material at the store.

*Working days are Monday to Friday, excluding bank holidays and library closed periods. 

You will be notified by email when item has been delivered; it will then be held for seven working days.       

For information, questions, comments and feedback, please contact 
                     reference@lib.cam.ac.uk