Cambridge University Library
The university's main research library, a legal-deposit giant under a brick tower visible across the city.
Cambridge University Library, often just the UL, serves as the principal research collection of the University of Cambridge, and is the largest of the 100-plus libraries across the university. Under UK law it is entitled to a copy of everything published in Britain and Ireland, as one of six such deposit libraries, and holds around nine million items, taking in roughly 100,000 more each year. It occupies a site on West Road, with Robinson College on one side and the Memorial Court belonging to Clare College on the other.
From chests to a tower
The university owned books by the middle of the 1300s, and a shared library is traceable to the early fifteenth century; the earliest surviving catalogue dates from about 1424 and lists 122 volumes. The collection lived for centuries in the Old Schools beside the Senate House and was given extra room by the Cockerell Building of 1837–42.
The present building, constructed from 1931 to 1934, stands on eight acres that had been the joint cricket ground of King's and Clare and, during the First World War, the site of a military hospital. It is Grade II listed. Most of the funding came from an American philanthropist, who is credited with persuading the architect to add the front-facing tower. It rises 157 feet, about 48 metres, and can be seen from miles away. Inside are 17th- and 18th-century bookcases reused from the old library.
Visiting
Borrowing and reading rights are for members, but the library runs a series of exhibitions in its exhibition centre, where entry is always free and open to the general public; the centre is open Monday to Friday and Saturday mornings into the afternoon, with exhibition dates posted separately. There is also a tea room. Check the library's website before you go, as hours change in term and vacation.
Nearby
Within a few minutes' walk
