While the majority of our collection supports your academic studies or research needs, we know everyone needs a break sometimes. Resources such as our General Collection are available to help you relax, provide you with information and fulfil all of your non-academic needs.
General Collection
We may be biased, but we think that reading for pleasure is just as important as academic reading, and we've created a General Collection to make it really easy for you to spot great books for your spare time. The General Collection is located on the ground floor of the Library on the left-hand side as you go through the doors into the reading room, and includes prize-winning contemporary fiction and non-fiction as well as biographies, popular science and books by Queens' alumni.
All the books are searchable on iDiscover and a list of our current holdings can be seen here (last updated January 2024). If you have any suggestions for additions to this collection, please let us know!
Welfare
The Library has worked with the college's Health & Wellbeing Team to curate a collection of books to help you through any tough times you might have while you're at Queens'. These can be found in the General Collection and cover a range of subjects dealing with personal physical and mental health and sensitive social issues. Books on especially sensitive topics in the General Collection have been marked with a gold star on their spine, meaning they can be borrowed anonymously. To borrow anonymously, remove a slip from the front inside cover of the book and place it in the designated container, then you can take the book out for as long as you need. All books with gold stars have been desensitised to the security gates, so you needn't worry about causing an alarm.
If you're away from Cambridge and find you want access to some welfare material, the University Library's Accessibility team have curated a great list of wellbeing ebooks.
Other resources
Games
A selection of games are now available in the General Collection on the ground floor of the Library, which can be borrowed as usual with the self-issue machine: see here to browse the game collection.
DVDs
Our DVD collection is located on the first floor of the Library, on either side of the double doors. If you don't have a DVD drive in your laptop, we have borrowable DVD players that can be plugged into your device via USB; ask at the enquiry desk to borrow.
Other libraries
There are over 100 libraries in Cambridge, many of which you can use as a Cambridge student. Most use iDiscover for their catalogue so you can see what they have at the same time as searching for our books, but you can check out a full list of Cambridge libraries here to make sure you're not missing anything. If you're looking for leisure materials, the English Faculty Library have a great collection of contemporary literature and the Judge Business School have lots of popular films and TV series on DVD. Both can be used by any Cambridge student, though you'll need to contact them first to join.
Don't forget that you can also join your local library to borrow even more! Local library services provide access to a wealth of online and physical resources, from books and audiobooks to newspapers and magazines. You are all eligible to join Cambridgeshire County Library service by living in Cambridge - why not find your home library and join there too to access even more?