WorldCat (https://www.worldcat.org/) allows you to search the contents of Libraries globally, you can search WorldCat to see holdings for individual books or jounals/issues in your region.
Worldcat can be useful to visit a regional academic Library to loan or access a physical resource for reference purposes, or WorldCat may assist in arranging an inter-library loan, i.e. where your current library requests the item from another library holding the physical item.
When using WorldCat, use the advanced search to search for a required book or article title, when you have identified a required item in search results, supply your region/city/postcode in 'Enter your location' to limit results to your region, the platform also suggests commercial sources for purchase (you should ensure you review available sources for literature shown in your reading list, including the online Library or other sources supplied by your programme):
You might consider using a local or regional library as an additional source for printed books and other resources, the following online catalogues may be useful for browsing the collections of National, Public and Higher Education libraries:
Library Hub (https://discover.libraryhub.jisc.ac.uk) allows you to search all major Library catalogues of the UK and Ireland, including academic, civic and public Libraries, the platform provides details of physical and electronic holdings for potential access to walk-in use of digital holdings (you should ensure you review available sources for literature shown in your reading list, including the online Library or other sources supplied by your programme):
The British Library On Demand (https://www.bl.uk/on-demand) provides a commercial electronic document supply service, including chapters, articles and historical sources., the price list is available at https://www.bl.uk/on-demand/pricing (you should ensure you review available sources for literature shown in your reading list, including the online Library or other sources supplied by your programme):
RightFind (http://www.copyright.com/business/document-delivery-with-rightfind/) is a commercial article and book chapter supply service, you will need to register an account on the platform to request documents:
SCONUL (http://www.sconul.ac.uk/sconul-access) is an agreement which allows UK based university students (and staff) to obtain a ‘SCONUL access card’ from the University Library where you are studying which can be presented at external University libraries for reference or borrowing purposes. SCONUL will only allow borrowing (of physical items) for research based - such as online doctorate (not taught Masters) programmes. You must have registered for student Library borrowing to use SCONUL. The scheme cannot be used with other Library borrowing options such as alumni access or external membership. For further details please see this page.
If you do not qualify for borrowing with SCONUL and wish to loan items from another University Library you are recommended to view that Library’s policies for public visitor access and borrowing. Most University libraries will allow you to register to use their libraries for reference purposes without cost (i.e. public visitor access), you should contact them before you visit to find out what their arrangements are. Some universities do not allow non-university users to access the Library during term time.
Possible further options include:
Public Libraries can often be used to borrow scholarly materials or can provide inter-library schemes to obtain unavailable items. See tabs above for links to online catalogues to search local, civic and other Library collections.
If you live near London, you may also find it helpful to know that the British Library in London will provide reference (reading) facilities to visiting students with a student ID who have a valid reason for using the collection.
The address of the British Library in London is:
The British Library
St Pancras,
96 Euston Road,
London,
NW1 2DB
Telephone: 020 7412 7332
NCBI is a medical and health related database which can suggest commercial supply services, you should ensure you have consulted UoL Library databases (and should explore UoL Library supply services such as ArticleReach if you are able to use these facilities - see advice above) before using commercial supply services.
If you wish to explore use of campus document supply services please initially discuss any resource need with the Online Librarian. If you are currently resident overseas you are unable to access UoL Library document supply services, this is due to licensing and copyright restrictions imposed by external publishers and copyright agencies.
You should ensure you consult our electronic resources and databases to check if electronic access is available for your required reading or independently sourced readings derived from your literature review.
Open Library (https://openlibrary.org/) is a freely accessible digital Library provided by the US publicly funded archive.org. In Open Library you can access texts across a wide range of scholarly disciplines (or fiction texts) on-screen or download in PDF format, note - some texts may require checking out (then view either on-screen or download in a time-limited format using Adobe Digital Editions).
You can also visit archive.org for many Open Access texts, historical sources and community texts.
You can also access many Open Access copyright-free works, including classical literature from Project Guttenberg.
If your required E-Journal article, E-Book or other specialist resources is not available via UoL Library subscriptions and you have consulted our guidelines (and the Online Librarian), you should inform your tutor of any academic difficulties as soon as possible.
