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Print books are great and we have a large selection in each of our libraries that are relevant to the courses taught on that campus, but for academic purposes ebooks are often more easily searchable, more readily available and provide you with 24-hour access to a wider variety of titles.

Don't forget that reading is for pleasure too! Check out the Reading for You pages.

Bookshelf,

 
  • Print books

    Classmarks, Classmarks

    The books are arranged on the shelves in numerical order according to the Dewey Decimal Classification scheme, using numbers 0-999.  Look out for the coloured shelf markers.

    All of our books are issued for 2 weeks and renew automatically unless they have been requested by another borrower.  Check out the Loans and Renewals page for more information.

    Most of the books are in the Main collection but we have a couple of smaller subject specific collections such as the Teaching Practice and the Law library at Fusehill street.  

    Finding the books using OneSearch (the library catalogue)

    OneSearch is our Library search engine which can search for books or articles.  It can be accessed from any computer with an internet connection or there are dedicated computers for using OneSearch, located within each of the libraries. More help on searching OneSearch

    If you know the book you are looking for the quickest way to find it is with the author's surname and a keyword from the title.  Check in which campus library it is held. If it is at your campus and there is a copy available, make a note of the classmark and location and collect it from the shelf. The video below will show you how to find print books on OneSearch:

     Print book video,

    If the book you want is on loan or held in another campus library, you can request it yourself from OneSearch and it will be sent to your home library. This video on reserving a book shows how to make the most of the request service.
    Alternatively you can sign up for postal loans.

    Once you know the classmark for your subject, take a look along the shelf to see what else looks useful at the same classmark. Nothing beats a serendipitous find.

    Not sure where to start?  Check out the reading list for your module.

     

     

  • Ebooks

    We have a huge number of ebooks to support your studies.  These are not the same as Kindle books, they are online books available 24/7 via the Internet. They will be on your reading lists, often as "essential texts", or you can search OneSearch or the individual collections for relevant books.

    1. Use OneSearch to search across all of the collections in one go, then limit to "Available Online". Click on the book to see the collection that holds the ebook and follow the link.

    2. Or search individual ebook Collections to make more advanced searches of the content.

    Ebooks can be read online or downloaded but we recommend reading online if you are on the internet as it is more straightforward and you get all the functionality, such as adding notes and printing.  More details on Downloading ebooks.

    Depending on the collection you can add notes, print pages, change the background colour and read aloud. The EbooksGuide will tell you which features are available in each collection. The accessibility features of the ebooks can vary between collections so check out the Accessibility page for more information.

    For more help finding and reading ebooks download our Ebooks Guide or watch our video below:

     

    Ebook_video,

     

    You will need to log in to access the ebooks, any problems accessing the ebooks, check out our Troubleshooting eresources page.

    Please note that publishers may limit the number of users and the availability of some features due to copyright and licencing.  If all copies are in use you may have to wait until the other user has finished. Ebook licensing explained.

    Why isn't my key text available as an ebook?  Some publishers are restricting access to ebooks, check out this great short video for more information and join the ebooksos campaign.

  • Get more books

    Suggesting other books for purchase

    If you are a student and find the library does not stock a book that is on your reading list or any other title you think would be useful to you and other students, you can use the Get More Books service.

    If the book is appropriate for the library and money is available, the book will be purchased. Orders can take anything from a couple of weeks to several months to be delivered depending on availability.

  • Diversity in our library collections

    Our students come to us from a diverse range of backgrounds and to reflect this we want to increase the range of books in the library which are written by people from a BAME (Black, Asian, and Minority Ethnic) background. You can get involved by suggesting books through the Get More Books scheme.

    We want to make sure our collection reflects our diverse student and staff body and have curated a number of lists to signpost relevant texts. Please feel free to use the discussion feature on the lists to contribute

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