New chapter for library

Shelf after heaving shelf, tall books with cracked spines, some with tiny white stickers denoting books in dire need of conservationists' TLC, and small chunky books with grimy covers bearing the DNA of virtually everyone who's ever flicked through their finely printed pages.

At first impression the fourth level of this deceptive George IV Bridge building seems not unlike many of the others: so crammed with millions of publications that the library is undergoing a continual "shuffle" to try to create more space.

For just as the rest of us rearrange the contents of the lounge bookcase to cram in the latest Ian Rankin or Alexander McCall Smith, library staff are tweaking shelves to make space too - only on a much grander scale.

Now it's emerged that the library needs to find more space to store its ever-growing collection - it is one of only six libraries in the land with the legal right to claim a copy of every book and magazine published in Britain.

Bill Jackson, its estate manager, has been patiently explaining the efforts to create room in a building - which most concede was built in the wrong place, to the wrong design and, most worryingly, the wrong size - when suddenly he vanishes between a row of heaving shelves.

A door swings open, there's a whiff of dampness and a curious chill and there, feet away from rows of priceless tomes appear the raw, moss-clad arched foundations of George IV Bridge and spooky dark underground caverns.

Once this was a pavement connected with the original 17th-century Advocate's Library, later built over to form the bridge and today home to cobwebs and huge shiny water tanks, part of the modern library's fire sprinkler system.

"I came across this in 1988," recalls Bill, pointing out how the hidden cavity stretches the length of the building.

"It appeared on plans but no-one had looked to see what was actually here. I crawled through a hole . . . and found this."

The dark void rises from the Cowgate up to the pavement leading to the main entrance above: so curious is this building that its public entrance actually sits on the 11th floor. The water tanks were installed after Bill successfully persuaded management that water damage in the event of a major blaze would be better than a pile of smouldering ashes.

"Los Angeles' library had a fire which burned for almost a day," he explains. "When you think about it, this is a warehouse of fuel for a fire."

The dingy space - which city ghost tours have pleaded with library staff to allow them to visit - was a remarkable find. Yet there have been many "eureka" moments within the library walls themselves - often when beady-eyed curators uncover a long-forgotten note that forms an astonishing historic connection.

"Manuscripts arrive and can mean 30 to 40 years of work ahead," explains Iain Brown, principal manuscript curator and an expert in the library's vast Sir Walter Scott collection. "For example, the Minto papers came here in 1957, but weren't catalogued until the 1980s - 30 years of work."

The Minto manuscripts alone contain dozens of books stuffed with hundreds of individual papers. "In here will be material of broad interest - political, historic, economic and local - but you might think not much more than that," says Iain. "Then you wonder, 'who was the first Earl, how did he become an Earl?'

"One collection can take you half way around the world."

It is, of course, a mere thumbnail of the sheer scale of what goes on behind the scenes of the Scotland's national reference library.

But it does point to why it's now in the grip of a major programme aimed at taking the 14 million printed items it holds and figuring out how best they could be stored.

For with 300,000 new items arriving every year - 6000 a week - eventually something will have to give.

Back on the fourth floor, Bill points to one shelf where tall books rest alongside smaller tomes. "Look at the air space," he explains. "If we rationalise that we could fit in two more shelves. That could release 20 per cent more space - around 40 kilometres of room. A new building to provide that space would cost around 40m."

In the lift to another floor there are books that have been placed in boxes. It's a devastatingly simple although laborious process that will ensure space in the building for the burgeoning collection for at least another 15 years.

But amid all that, what matters most to the 100,000 visitors to the library every year, is simply getting their hands on the book they want.

And without the vital services of the small group of book fetchers the library would hardly function.

They number just eight (although some are based in the Causewayside building), each covering around ten miles a day in their library issue trainers, delivering and collecting books but also maintaining their safe storage.

Tom Watson, collection support services supervisor, has trod the floors for 20 years. "When you work daily with old printed books and handwritten manuscripts, you soon realise this is a unique opportunity," he says. "There's not many places that you can work where you can hold a piece of history in your hands."

HISTORIC ROOTS

Before the National Library of Scotland, books were collected from the 1680s by the Library of the Faculty of Advocates.

The National Library of Scotland was formed in 1925 - this year is its 85th anniversary.

Construction on George IV Bridge began in 1939 - the site chosen to provide an easy link to the nearby Signet Library - and completed in 1956.

Its collections include a rare 15th-century Gutenberg Bible and material linked with some of Scotland's best known writers.

There are also more than 1.5 million sheet maps and 15,000 atlases.