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Why do we say, these days nobody is still caring about paper books? In my mind, the ever-developing digital storage devices will never completely take the place of paper books. And we do need to store books, especially valued old books in a better way. The British Library has built up a new Additional Storage Building (ASB) that adopts seven robotic cranes to retrieve books. Seven million books are hoped to be stored in the new library.

Based on an automated storage system, ABS promises to provide a quick and accurate retrieval of any books kept on the 262km long shelves. The best part is that: the storage system will sort out high-use items and low-use items, according to the book borrow rate.

Besides, ASB also features a low oxygen environment that can cut the odds of fires. It is said that, as a result, any books stored in ASB won’t the destroyed even without the protection of extinguishing equipment.

It will come into use in summer, 2010.