Slashdot Mirror


Oxford Expands Library With 153 Miles of Shelves

Oxford University's Bodleian Library has purchased a huge £26m warehouse to give a proper home to over 6 million books and 1.2 million maps. The Library has been housing the collection in a salt mine, and plans on transferring the manuscripts over the next year. "The BSF will prove a long-awaited solution to the space problem that has long challenged the Bodleian," said its head librarian Dr Sarah Thomas. "We have been running out of space since the 1970s and the situation has become increasingly desperate in the last few years." The 153 miles of new shelf space will only be enough for the next 20 years however because of the library's historic entitlement to a copy of every volume published in the UK.

9 of 130 comments (clear)

  1. Since the 70's!? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    "We have been running out of space since the 1970s and the situation has become increasingly desperate in the last few years."

    I wish my problems allowed for 40 years of procrastination!

    1. Re:Since the 70's!? by Suki+I · · Score: 5, Funny

      "We have been running out of space since the 1970s and the situation has become increasingly desperate in the last few years."

      I wish my problems allowed for 40 years of procrastination!

      I think those are metric years. They are different than our years.

    2. Re:Since the 70's!? by MarkRose · · Score: 2, Funny

      Well, they did eventually do something about the problem, as they could only shelve it for so long.

      --
      Be relentless!
    3. Re:Since the 70's!? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

      How about,

          Elongari a landa!

  2. Re:The question is by boristdog · · Score: 3, Funny

    I believe we owe each other a drink.

  3. In soviet russia ... by Alain+Williams · · Score: 5, Funny

    The Library has been housing the collection in a salt mine

    they sent their poets to the salt mines, ... in the UK we sent their poetry there instead!

    I have read some of the modern poets, a salt mine seems like the best destination for much of what they produced ....

  4. Easy by Quiet_Desperation · · Score: 3, Funny

    They were helped when the LHC testing at CERN caused a subspace distortion rift into the Unseen University's library on Discworld, so there's more space in that wing than is actually there. It's... quantum. It's actually 153 *thousand* miles of shelf space, so lots of room, but it smells like bananas all the time for some reason.

  5. Re:Interns? by pisto_grih · · Score: 2, Funny

    Temp implies "temporary" but they still get paid. Interns are unpaid. Where did you learn English, Cambridge?

  6. Re:Get your units right by M8e · · Score: 4, Funny

    Football of course, nobody even mentioned handegg.