#medieval libraries

So for my English assignment I’m doing a short story (I mean, we always do every year), and I’m doing a fantasy story. The problem is, I have put a library in it because the main character needs to borrow some books but I don’t know how medieval libraries work? Does anyone know?

Last Saturday the Project Archivist visited Wells cathedral, just 7 miles from Downside Abbey. The medieval cathedral library at Wells is located above the east cloister walk and consists of a long, narrow chamber, almost as long as the cloister itself (above). Lined with wooden paneling and well ventilated, the books at Wells are famously chained to their shelves. Although the current furniture in the library is post-Reformation in date, it gives a good impression of how the medieval library must have appeared. More interestingly still, the position and size of the library at Wells Cathedral is thought to mirror the library arrangements at the medieval Benedictine abbey of Glastonbury. While the Wells library gives us a good impression of how a large, late medieval English monastic library would have appeared, it would only have contained a few thousand books at its greatest extent. The 450,000 + volumes housed at Downside Abbey today would fill the Wells library many, many times over! Reached through the south transept of Wells cathedral, the medieval cathedral library is well worth visiting.