Cambridge has one of the greatest collections of books and manuscripts in Europe, housed in over 100 individual libraries. The main university library is a legal deposit library, meaning that it is entitled to a copy of every book published in the UK and Ireland. It is one of the world’s major research libraries with over 8 million volumes.
In addition each college and department has its own library. College libraries cater mainly for undergraduates and will have copies of many of the core texts required for your course. A number of college libraries, such as the Parker Library at Corpus and the Wren Library at Trinity, also have their own world-renowned collections of manuscripts and rare books. The Fitzwilliam Museum also has its own library, which is a particularly important resource for the study of the history of art, and only a short walk from the department.
The Faculty Library for Architecture and History of Art is located in Scroope Terrace and holds over 35000 volumes for the study of the subjects and takes over 300 relevant journals. It is open Monday-Friday during full term and most weekdays during the vacations.
All students in the department have use of the Faculty Library. Introductory tours take place at the beginning of the academic year in order to demonstrate the layout and usage of the library to all new students. The library also provides photocopy facilities and on-line computer terminals in the library enable access to the records of books held in our library as well as the many other Cambridge college and Departmental libraries and the University Library. The internet facilities give access to library catalogues worldwide. Bibliographic databases are available on cd rom, or via the web from the library terminals.