̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge - legal deposit

Work begins on new off-site storage facility for Cambridge libraries

sjr81 — Fri, 31 Mar 2017 08:50:57 +0000

And despite Cambridge ̽��ֱ�� Library having room for more than 2.5 million books on its open shelves – more than any other open-access collection in Europe – its 31.8 miles of open shelving are increasingly close to capacity.

Fortunately, help will soon be at hand as work on a new £17.1million off-site storage facility began earlier this month with a traditional ground-breaking ceremony at the new construction site on the outskirts of Ely.

It is hoped that the first books will begin arriving from early 2018 to the Lancaster Way Business Park, near Ely. ̽��ֱ��business park is built on the site of former World War Two bomber base, RAF Witchford. At current estimates, the store would not reach capacity until 2030 at the earliest.

̽��ֱ��new store will provide long-term storage for low-use printed material acquired by the main ̽��ֱ�� Library, affiliated libraries and other faculty and departmental libraries of the ̽��ֱ��. ̽��ֱ��off-site storage facility will provide 106km (65miles) of storage space on around 30,000 shelves. There is also potential to expand the site by 25 percent in the longer term.

̽��ֱ��highest shelf at the Ely site (11m) is the height of two adult giraffes and the capacity of the store is equal to 18 Olympic swimming pools. If the shelving was laid out end-to-end, it would stretch from Cambridge to London.

Acting ̽��ֱ�� Librarian Professor Chris Young said: “ ̽��ֱ��new store will help resolve the problem of chronic overcrowding of libraries across the university and ensure that the most appropriate printed material is kept in the most appropriate and useful location for all our readers.

“ ̽��ֱ��off-site storage will also help the ̽��ֱ�� Library support teaching, learning and research by allowing us to plan new spaces and rethink our existing facilities and services. Only very low-use material will be considered for ingest for which there is little expected future demand.

“Through its Legal Deposit role the ̽��ֱ�� Library has been collecting and preserving the published output of the UK and Ireland in all its variety since 1710, helping to build one of the world’s great academic library collections. ̽��ֱ��new store will ensure that we fulfil our responsibilities as a national repository of research material by enabling us to house the publications in suitable conditions and make them available to future generations of researchers and library users.”

Once the migration process is under way, the delivery of printed material to the Ely store is expected to continue as a high volume activity until at last 2025. Should readers request material, the physical item will be retrieved and transported to the UL. Requests of material from the store, aim to be delivered to the ̽��ֱ�� Library within one to two working days.

“More than 30 sites within a 50-mile radius of Cambridge were evaluated on size, ground conditions, land cost, and transport links before the Ely site was confirmed as the preferred location,” added Young. “Our new facility will future-proof the university libraries’ storage needs for a decade and more, especially given the projected effect of a gradual transition from print to digital-only publishing over the same period.

“ ̽��ֱ��main ̽��ֱ�� Library alone has more than 260,000 annual visits and more than 300,000 items borrowed per year. We want people to have the best possible experience every time they visit – and the new storage facility will allow us to run both the main ̽��ֱ�� Library and our affiliated libraries much more efficiently.”

When you’re a Legal Deposit library holding more than eight million books and manuscripts, one million maps, and have been entitled to a copy of every UK publication since 1710, space can be at something of a premium.

̽��ֱ�� ̽��ֱ�� Library has been collecting and preserving the published output of the UK and Ireland in all its variety since 1710.

Chris Young

Acting Librarian Chris Young and library staff at the groundbreaking ceremony in Ely

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Click to save the nation’s digital memory

sjr81 — Fri, 05 Apr 2013 14:53:47 +0000

Regulations coming into force on April 6 will enable six major libraries to collect, preserve and provide long term access to the increasing proportion of the nation’s cultural and intellectual output that appears in digital form – including blogs, e-books and the entire UK web domain.

From this point forward, the British Library, Cambridge ̽��ֱ�� Library, the National Library of Scotland, the National Library of Wales, the Bodleian Libraries, and Trinity College Library in Dublin will have the right to receive a copy of every UK electronic publication, on the same basis as they have received print publications such as books, magazines and newspapers for several centuries.

̽��ֱ��regulations, known as legal deposit, will ensure that ephemeral materials like websites can be collected, preserved forever and made available to future generations of researchers, providing the fullest possible record of life and society in the UK in the 21st century for people 50, 100, even 200 or more years in the future.

Cambridge ̽��ֱ�� Librarian Anne Jarvis said: “I greatly welcome this landmark legislation as it means that Cambridge ̽��ֱ�� Library can collect and preserve the UK's digital publishing output, particularly that which will support current and future research.”

Culture Minister Ed Vaizey MP said: “Legal deposit arrangements remain vitally important. Preserving and maintaining a record of everything that has been published provides a priceless resource for the researchers of today and the future.

“So it’s right that these long-standing arrangements have now been brought up to date for the 21st century, covering the UK’s digital publications for the first time. ̽��ֱ��Joint Committee on Legal Deposit has worked very successfully in creating practical policies and processes so that digital content can now be effectively archived and our academic and literary heritage preserved, in whatever form it takes.”

̽��ֱ��principle of extending legal deposit beyond print was established with the Legal Deposit Libraries Act of 2003 – the present regulations implement it in practical terms, encompassing electronic publications such as e-journals and e-books, offline (or hand-held) formats like CD-Rom and an initial 4.8 million websites from the UK web domain.

Access to non-print materials, including archived websites, will be offered via on-site reading room facilities at each of the legal deposit libraries. While the initial offering to researchers will be limited in scope, the libraries will gradually increase their capability for managing large-scale deposit, preservation and access over the coming months and years.

By the end of this year, the results of the first live archiving crawl of the UK web domain will be available to researchers, along with tens of thousands of e-journal articles, e-books and other materials.

̽��ֱ��regulations were developed by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport in conjunction with the Joint Committee on Legal Deposit, which includes representatives from the Legal Deposit Libraries and different sectors of the publishing industry. They establish an agreed approach for the libraries to develop an efficient system for archiving digital publications, while avoiding an unreasonable burden for publishers and protecting the interests of rights-holders.

Angela Mills Wade, Executive Director of the European Publishers Council, Chairman of the UK Publishers Content Forum and Joint Chairman of the Joint Committee on Legal Deposit said: “Capturing our digital heritage for preservation and future research is essential. As publishers were among the first to embrace the opportunities of digital publishing, recognising advantages of dissemination beyond traditional outlets and the potential of technology to drive innovation, we welcome the extension of legal deposit to digital formats and web harvesting.”

Billions of web pages from millions of websites, as well as public Facebook posts and tweets, will be preserved for time immemorial from tomorrow by Cambridge ̽��ֱ�� Library and five other major libraries.

Cambridge ̽��ֱ�� Library can collect and preserve the UK's digital publishing output, particularly that which will support current and future research.

Anne Jarvis

Carna Botnet

Graphic showing worldwide Internet usage

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