Although it has not been possible to find an affordable alternative site in Cambridge to house the whole collection, the interim service enables longer opening hours for the most popular materials, with most of the rest of the Collection available on request.

Milton Road Library (instant access 60 hours per week)

Please click here for details of all services offered at Milton Road Library, including bus routes and a map of the area

A separate, staffed room at Milton Road Library has been dedicated to users of the Cambridgeshire Collection, providing:

• 16 reader spaces
• popular local studies reference books
• current local newspapers
• back runs of local newspapers on microfilm
• online library catalogue and card catalogues
• 3 dedicated PCs
• 2 dedicated microfilm reader printers
• 1 standalone PC for CD ROMs
• a dedicated notice board for local history related notices

Professional local studies staff are based at the nearby Roger Ascham site, and available on call during normal office hours and Saturdays to deal with more complex queries

In local storage (48 hour retrieval)

Local, secure library storage accommodates two thirds of the Collection, for retrieval on demand within 48 hours. This includes the bulk of well-used materials:

• 95% of the bookstock – reference and lending
• 95% of the illustrations
• cuttings files, pamphlets and sales particulars

In deep storage

The remainder of the Collection have been moved into hiqh (archival) quality, secure storage and includes lesser used, duplicate and rare/unique material:

• duplicate books and books widely available at other libraries
• some special collections
• audiovisual materials including photographic negatives
• maps and oversize illustrations
• ephemera

Resources elsewhere

The Cambridgeshire Collection is now part of the wider Archives and Local Studies Service. Users are encouraged to discover the collections of books, newspapers, maps and photographs etc. in local studies collections in libraries around the county, particularly at Huntingdon and Wisbech.

These collections are complemented by the wealth of original documents held at the County Record Offices, at Shire Hall, Cambridge and in Huntingdon.

Holdings at County Record Office Cambridge include:

• family history resources - census, parish registers, online resources, family history guides, wills, transcripts and indexes, etc.
• a full collection of Ordnance Survey maps for Cambridgeshire from earliest editions onwards, including those at 6 and 25 inch scales

For full details of these services please pick up the leaflets in libraries or Record Offices, or follow the link in the righthand column

The future

In 2008 the Cambridgeshire Collection back into the Central Library on a temporary basis.

A new heritage resource centre is planned to open in or soon after 2009, combining the Cambridgeshire Collection and the County Record Office, Cambridge, on one site in Station Road, Cambridge. This is an exciting development, which will bring complementary collections together and improve and extend public facilities. 

Further information about these plans will be made available in due course

Can you help?

The interim arrangements provide a unique opportunity to concentrate staff efforts on catching up with backlogs of sorting, cataloguing, indexing, binding and packaging of collections, which will make available much material previously inaccessible to users. This will also help ensure that collections are integrated and properly prepared for improved access arrangements at the new resource centre. Volunteer assistance for this important behind the scenes work would be welcomed from friends and supporters of the Collection. For more information please contact Chris Jakes on 01223 712027