Home to more than eight million books and periodicals, one million maps, and many thousands of manuscripts, issues of space are a recurring theme at Cambridge University Library.

But the latest phase of work to increase storage capacity at the iconic Giles Gilbert Scott building – which celebrates its 75th anniversary this year - is nearing completion.

The traditional University ‘topping out’ ceremony was performed yesterday in front of guests invited by contractor RG Carter of Cambridge. Professor Steve Young, Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Planning and Resources (pictured) did the honours.

Once completed, the phase six extension will provide a further 30km of storage. The project comprises five floors and has been designed and built to match the philosophy of Giles Gilbert Scott’s original design. All the bricks and roof tiles were hand-made to correlate with the original vision of Scott.

John Ford, Director and General Manager of R G Carter Cambridge Limited, said: “Once again, we are delighted to be celebrating our continued relationship with the University of Cambridge and the University Library, by ‘topping out’ the phase six extension to this historic building and icon of the Cambridge landscape.

“For the past 13 years, a spirit of collaborative working and teamwork has developed between our client, the professional teams involved and ourselves, resulting in a series of excellent projects being delivered on programme and to the highest quality – something that we and all concerned can be extremely proud of.”

University Librarian Anne Jarvis said: “Along with the new shelving capacity and correct environmental conditions to store our expanding print collections, Phase 6 will ensure that we can continue to provide access to all our physical holdings in this building.

“In addition it will enable the UL to release what is currently a closed access bookstack floor on the 4th floor into a fully refurbished open stack with new group study spaces. One of the special features of this Library is the 80km of open stack where readers can browse at their leisure. We are delighted to be able to provide this enhancement and indeed to reclaim the reader spaces which in recent times have been overflowing with books.”

Work on the project began in October 2008 and is expected to be completed by August 2010.

As part of planning requirements, one per cent of the cost of the building work, had to be spent on public art.

That commitment, thanks to a generous donation from the Arcadia Fund, was realised last week with the launch of Cambridge University Library’s new public artwork ‘Ex Libris’.

Fourteen bronze sculptures, in the shape of stacks of books, have been placed outside the entrance of the University Library. The sculptures were designed by Cambridge artist Harry Gray.

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