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Oxford Expands Library With 153 Miles of Shelves

Posted by samzenpus on from the card-catalog-of-the-gods dept.

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.

2 of 130 comments (clear)

  1. LOC by boristdog · · Score: 3, Interesting

    How many typewritten pages or Libraries of Congresses is that?

  2. They're keeping books not data by fantomas · · Score: 5, Interesting

    One of the things the British Library is interested in is keeping books, not data. Books are valuable not only for the content but also may be of interest to future generations because of their typography, layout, binding, other aspects of their physical construction. Also it takes a lot more time and money to scan a book rather than putting it on a bookshelf.