Library Collections and Finding Items

Reading lists may be a very short selection of key texts or extensive lists of almost every work on a particular topic. This can be daunting and you may be left wondering where to start. A useful guide to Reading Lists can be found at, UG CamGuides: How do I find books and articles from a reading list?

Reading Lists Online gives easy access to electronic versions of your reading lists, with live locations and availability of print copies, and links to electronic books, articles and websites, videos and digitised chapters.

Some items may still be available at Magdalene's New Library even if the library is not listed on Reading Lists Online, because we have a different version or edition so double check by searching iDiscover.

The following videos on Searching for a Specific Item and Browsing a List provide a useful guide.

The first step to finding a book in our collections is to look for it using the iDiscover website.

iDiscover is the University-wide catalogue that searches for items across all of the Cambridge Libraries.

A LibGuide is available explaining how to use Discover and includes several useful introductory videos.

To search for an item, type in part of the title/author into the search bar. You can limit your search to items in a specific library using the drop down menu on the right.

When you find the item you want in the search results, click on the title to view the list of libraries that hold a copy. From there, select the library you wish to borrow from to check availability and borrowing options.

The ‘Status’ will tell you if it is on the shelf.

The status will be either:

• Item in place = book is available on the shelf to borrow
• On loan (with due date) = book is out on loan to someone else
• In transit = book has been requested and is waiting to be picked up by the requester

For further information about borrowing and requesting loaned items please see the Borrowing and Managing your Library Account page.

If the status is Item in place make a note of the number/letter sequence next to the Library name – in the example above this is 4.O.493. This is the classmark or call number and tells you where the book is located in the Library.

If an item is shown as Item in place but you can’t find it on the shelf, please let a member of the library team know.

To find where a book is in the library you need to know the location and classmark (also called ‘shelfmark’ or ‘call number’).

There are a number of locations in the New Library:

Main Library: Ground, First or Second Floor.

Wigglesworth Law Library: Located in the Wigglesworth Law room on the Second Floor.

Reserve Collection: These items are stored offsite and will need to be retrieved by staff. Please ask staff or use the Click and Collect form to request these books.

Office: Please ask staff if you need something stored in the office.

Pepys Library/Old Library: Items kept in the historic Pepys Library/Old Library. Please contact the Pepys Library to request access to these items.

Maps are displayed on the walls, and you can view or download a PDF version below. If you need help finding anything, please ask the library staff.

Magdalene College New Library Map (161.26 KB)

On the Ground Floor you can find collections of Modern Literature, Study and Career Skills, Wellbeing and Life Skills, Welcome to Cambridge, Board Games and Audiovisual (DVDs, CDs and other media).

For more information about these collections and to browse them online, please see our Accessibility and Welfare page.

Below are the numbers for each broad subject. The subdivisions for each subject can be downloaded below:

1. Archaeology and Physical Anthropology
2. Classics
3. Human, Social and Political Sciences
4. English
5. Economics
6. Linguistics, World Languages and Literatures, and Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic
7. Geography and Earth Sciences
8. History
9. Law
10. Mathematics, Engineering, Physics and Computer Science
11. Natural, Medical and Veterinary Sciences and Psychology
12. Philosophy
13. Land Economy
14. Theology, Religion and Philosophy of Religion
15. Architecture, History of Art and Film Studies
16. Music
17. Education
18. Cambridge, Magdalene College and Parnell collection

R. Reference Books, Journals and Past Exam Papers

Access to e-books, e-journals and databases is provided by the University Library, mainly via iDiscover. You will need to be logged in to iDisocver to access e-resources on your own devices.

Please email us if you are having problems accessing any e-resources.

e-Books

The University of Cambridge has access to over 1.5 million e-books from a wide variety of publishers and platforms.

E-books appear automatically in iDiscover search results, but you can select the ‘Articles and online resources’ button above the search bar to limit your search to e-resources. If an e-book version of a title is available, there will be a green ‘Online access’ link displayed under the item details:

Some e-books will appear in red text because they are e-legal deposit, which means for copyright reasons, they can only be accessed using specific computers at the University Library:

Further information and help with e-books can be found on the E-books Libguide.

e-Journals and Databases

Journals are listed on the University Library's e-journals webpages. You can search the list by title, subject, supplier, or citation.

You can search for journal articles using iDiscover by selecting the ‘Articles and online resources’ button above the search bar.

You can also browse by Journal title by selecting ‘E-journal search’ in the black header bar on iDiscover.

Please note that the journal article may be available from several different sources, and each might provide different coverage or time spans.

Databases can be browsed by selecting Databases A-Z.

The Lean Library is a very useful tool that automatically detects the articles that you can access through a Cambridge subscription when you're on other websites, e.g. Google, Bing, Baidu, PubMed, etc.

More information about how to use this extension can be viewed in this YouTube video, Lean Library – Light up your library. Anytime. Anywhere.