Once catalogued, all our collection items have a shelfmark. This information tells our staff the exact location on the shelf of the item you want to see. The item might be stored in London or in Yorkshire, but this is the key information you need when you want to request an item to consult in the Reading Rooms.
At the moment, due to the impact of the cyber-attack, we can’t check online to see whether an item has been requested by someone else. Instead, we’ve used colour-coding in the catalogue to indicate whether an item can be requested or not.
Red means an item cannot currently be retrieved, so it can’t be consulted in a Reading Room.
Amber means it is probably retrievable, although it may be in use by someone else.
Green means there’s an online link which you can use to access the item immediately OR that the item is shelved in one of the Reading Rooms and you can go and get it yourself. The message tells you which Reading Room to go to.
Find out more about how to request items from the catalogue.