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The Library of Trinity College Dublin

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Requests from Storage

The size and range of the Library of Trinity College Dublin means that only a small proportion of its stock is on the open shelves to be browsed. The bulk of the collection is held in storage areas either on campus, at the Santry Book Depository near Dublin Airport, or in other external locations.

In order to view the items a "Storage Request" must be made.

Unless specifically stated otherwise, material from storage locations can be delivered to the Berkeley, Early Printed Books, Hamilton, or John Stearne Medical Library Service Counters by using the Automated Storage Requests (ASR) procedure and selecting the appropriate location during the process. However, some books - mainly older material - cannot be delivered via ASR and must be requested using a call slip - the catalogue will indicate this. Journals must also be requested by call slip.

Whether the material can be borrowed depends on the category of reader requesting it and the category of material. For example, no-one may borrow material from the Early Printed Books or Manuscripts and Archives storage locations.

Items with the shelfmark in format "Numbers. Letters. Numbers"- e.g., 39.u.182, 71.t.53 - may generally be requested via ASR but only for use in the Early Printed Books Reading Room.

The catalogue will tell the user if the item is in storage by listing one of the following locations:

  • Early Printed Books Stacks
  • Manuscripts Stacks
  • Ussher Stacks
  • Santry Stacks
  • External Storage, Journals (however, many issues with this location will be available electronically)