This is the seventh in the series of guest posts written by one of SUNCAT’s Contributing Libraries. This month, Annette Ruehlmann, Librarian at the Institution of Civil Engineers, writes about the library and its serials collection.

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The Institution of Civil Engineers was founded in 1818 by a small group of idealistic young men and granted a royal charter in 1828 where it declared that its aim was to “foster and promote the art and science of civil engineering”.

The Library was founded in 1819 when the first periodicals were purchased and books presented, including the personal library of the Institution’s first president, Thomas Telford. Located on the first floor of the ICE headquarters at One Great George Street, the ICE Library collection was designated as being of outstanding national importance by the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council. With over 130,000 titles, the ICE Library is the largest single resource in Civil Engineering in the world.

Inside the Institution of Civil Engineers Library. (© Institution of Civil Engineers Library)

Its serials collection spans the globe, with titles in over 30 languages, and dates from the seventeenth century to the present, covering all aspects of civil engineering and related sciences. It includes, for example, not only a complete set of the ICE’s own publications but lengthy runs of the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London and of the Franklin Institute Journal, along with important nineteenth century and twentieth century technical periodicals such as The Engineer and Concrete and Constructional Engineering.

In total, the Library holds over 5000 periodical titles and technical report series and subscribes to approximately 300 current journals. A similar number are received under an exchange programme with engineering organisations from all over the world – a unique collection in the UK.

Some of the print journals you can find in the Institution of Civil Engineers Library. (© Institution of Civil Engineers Library)

Recently the Library has increasingly moved to electronic provision, with the digitisation of the Institution’s proceedings and subscription to electronic access where possible. Over three hundred journals are taken in this form, with access to many more through the databases to which the Library subscribes. These expand the library’s provision to the newer related sciences in the environment and ecology, as well as to legal and management titles.

You are welcome to visit the Library & Archive in person or request photocopies or PDFs either directly or through the British Library interlibrary/document supply scheme.

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SUNCAT would like to thank Annette for writing this post. If you would like to write a post on your SUNCAT Contributing Library and its serials collections please let us know.