21st Century Library

A couple of issues for all libraries are how to deal with the legacy of paper based materials in an increasingly electronic world, and how to move the focus to people and learning.

The Saltire Centre holds the complete University Library collection of 350,000 volumes and provides the full range of Library services. However, before moving to the new building the bookstock was split into 2 sequences - books that we know are borrowed regularly (about 25% of the stock) and those that are browsed. The borrowed stock is available on open shelves in the Saltire Centre and the browsed stock is housed in moveable compact shelving (shown above).

The compact shelving is simple to operate and users access the books held in it themselves. Taking this approach to housing the bookstock means that we have more open space in the building and can provide 1800 seats for users as compared with the 900 we had in the old LIbrary.