Welcome! Your library is here to support you throughout your time at Cambridge.
Your Technology Libraries Team are proud to offer:
Undergraduate?
Click on your year group below to find ways your librarians are supporting you this academic year!
Unlimited access to knowledge from our network of University of Cambridge Libraries
Beyond your Technology Libraries, as a University of Cambridge student, you have a vast network of library services to support you, with limitless access to knowledge and inspiration. Check out this guide to find out more.
During Easter Term 2025, Engineering Library staff initiated an ethically-approved user experience research project and began gathering student feedback with the intention of improving library services for them in time for the start of the new academic year.
Sweet treats were offered to students who were willing to give us a tour of the library, seen through their own eyes, and to answer a series of brief interview questions aimed at tapping into their perceived library 'pain points'.
This summer, we've been working with our research findings to help us to better understand current student study habits, the challenges they face and their sense of ownership of their library space.
Now, returning students will hopefully notice a number of small, but important 'you asked, we listened' changes to the space aimed at correcting the reported barriers to study and improving the library experience for all.
If you need to look something up we recommend Access Engineering to quickly find the answer you need. It searches the latest edition of engineering handbooks and textbooks, and will take you directly to the relevant chapter or paragraph. For some topics you'll also find step-by-step videos and solution walkthroughs.
Access via the Cambridge subscription: https://www-accessengineeringlibrary-com.ezp.lib.cam.ac.uk/
The University of Cambridge has a subscription to SpringerMaterials. This gives you and your colleagues access to the largest curated materials science database in the world, covering 300,000+ materials and 3,000+ physical and chemical properties in a single platform.
About SpringerMaterials
As the amount of scientific information exponentially increases, we understand the need to find relevant, reliable, critically evaluated data on-demand.
SpringerMaterials is the largest curated materials science database in the world, delivering fast, trusted content at your fingertips with 300,000+ materials and 3,000+ properties in a single platform.
SpringerMaterials provides consolidated, multi-source data from all major topics in materials science, chemistry, physics and engineering.
By using SpringerMaterials you will:
To find out more about the platform, you can view this video. It shows you what makes SpringerMaterials unique, and how it can help your research.
One of our key aims is to support you beyond your studies and research, so we are also keen to point you in the direction of our free online collections and electronic databases to help you make the most of your time at Cambridge. To compliment these e-resources, our libraries also have borrowable print collections that you can take advantage of. If you have any questions, please contact us or ask your librarian.
The sight of the Isambard Kingdom Brunel standee in the Engineering Library has become quite familiar to our regular library users.
An ever-present, watching silently on, from his spot near the library water cooler, his standee has become quite old and tattered recently.
Before he joins his firends in the departmental archive, the library team in collaboration with a number of Engineering Groups, are organising a farewell tour for him.
If you spot him in a new location, please do take a selfie with him. If you share it on your socials. use the hashtag #BrunelOnTour and the library team will spread the good word from their @CamTechLibs Instagram account (and feel free to send us a collab invite). Email techlib@lib.cam.ac.uk if you want him to visit your Engineering Group.
Negotiations are taking place to establish new agreements for 2026 with five of the major journal publishers – Elsevier, Springer Nature, Wiley, Taylor & Francis, and Sage. The outcome of these negotiations may affect how you read and publish research, and we want to hear from you.
The views of the University’s academic and research community at all levels are vital.
For more information about what's happening, what we're asking for and why, visit this webpage, which will be kept up to date throughout the process.
Apollo, the place for your researchIt is now possible to make open access, research data and doctoral thesis deposits into Apollo from Elements.
A new preprints deposit service is also available. You can now use Elements to deposit preprints in Apollo:
Please do not deposit preprints that have already been published on a subject repository/preprint server unless you have concerns about long-term preservation. See the Open access website for guidance on publishing preprints, including a preprint checker tool to help you select a suitable preprint server for your discipline. See the Unlocking Research blog post for more information.
The University launched a Self-Archiving Policy on 1 April 2023, following the year-long Rights Retention Pilot.
The policy gives Cambridge researchers a cost-effective route to make the accepted version of their papers open access without embargo – something that is now required by almost all research funders. It applies to all peer-reviewed research articles submitted after 1 April 2023, including reviews and conference papers.
One key difference between the new Self-Archiving Policy and the previous Rights Retention Pilot is that it is opt-out rather than opt-in.
This means that all researchers must either:
Before submission, ensure that your co-authors agree to apply a CC BY licence to the accepted manuscript. Alternative licences are permitted providing they are in line with funder requirements.
It is advisable to include the following sentence in your article’s financial disclosure or acknowledgements section: “For the purpose of open access, the author has applied a Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) licence to any Author Accepted Manuscript version arising from this submission”. This ensures that the publisher is aware of your intention to retain the right to distribute the accepted manuscript.
On acceptance, deposit your article into the repository through Symplectic Elements.
Researchers can include any preference for an alternative Creative Commons licence using the options provided.
Email info@openaccess.cam.ac.uk stating your intention to opt out. When depositing papers into the repository through Symplectic Elements, it is your responsibility to inform us that you are opting out by using fields provided in the form.
More information about the new policy can be found at https://www.lib.cam.ac.uk/stories/self-archiving-policy
Guidance and FAQs are available at https://www.openaccess.cam.ac.uk/publishing-open-access/self-archiving-policy-guidance
The University of Cambridge now subscribes to Overton, app.overton.io., the world’s largest searchable index of policy documents and their relationships with research, people and each other.
Overton can be used as:
It’s like Google for government reports, think tank publications, white papers and other policy documents. You can structure and/or limit a search by topic, country or geographical region, source type, document type and year. This highly focused filtering helps surface outputs from smaller organisations or geographical areas that are often deprioritised in a regular search process.
Citation reports and dashboards are specifically designed to help with research impact assessment. Search by publication, author or institution to find where your research has been cited or mentioned in policy worldwide. Use as evidence of research impact in grant applications, evaluations and creating case studies. Save your searches and set alerts to be notified of any new mentions/citations.
The past few years have seen growing calls to improve collaboration between researchers and policymakers - for governments to be clearer about where their knowledge gaps are and to lower the barriers for researchers to engage with them. Overton can be used to understand the policy landscape in your area and to identify opportunities to engage and influence policy, e.g. by finding evidence gaps identified by policy organisations or learning about the pathways of influence in your field. See Overton’s guide to impact planning.
Learn more about Overton and how to get the most out of it via its knowledge base and find out about the latest developments on the platform via Overton's blog.
If you’d like to discuss a particular use case or to arrange a demo for your group contact techlib@lib.cam.ac.uk.