Details of a £100m scheme to create a library for the 21st century have been revealed by Oxford University.

The plan would see the Bodleian transformed in the biggest overhaul of a university library service ever undertaken.

The New Bodleian, in Broad Street, would be substantially redeveloped, with millions of books moved to a £27m book depository to be built at the Osney Mead industrial estate, in west Oxford.

And the university plans to build a new lending library, costing up to £35m, on the site of the Radcliffe Infirmary, which would take up to two years.

The scheme will go before the University Council next month, when it will be assured that up to 8.25m volumes can be safely kept at Osney Mead. There had earlier been warnings that valuable and rare books could be at risk of flooding.

But Ronald Milne, acting director of the library service, said: "Thorough assessments show that most of the proposed depository site is already above the designated floodplain."

The shake-up at the 400-year-old Bodleian would mean the closure of many of the university's departmental libraries and job losses among the 600 library staff.

The modernisation could cost up to £50m and the work is made even more urgent by the Bodleian's failure to have its licence to hold collections of national importance renewed.

The creation of a large automated book depository in Osney Mead would be the first phase of the plan. Work could start early next year on a site next to the former Blackwell's Science Building.

Books ordered by students and researchers would be carried to the city centre by van, with about 12 deliveries a day, to limit impact on heavily-congested roads.