Contact us
In person at the Library and IT Help Desk
Email lib-enquiry@york.ac.uk
Phone (01904 32) 3838
"A very warm welcome to the University of York from the Library. This guide contains useful information about the resources and services that we provide to all members of the University.
The Library buildings offer bright, open spaces with a wide range of facilities and study areas, designed to suit all learning styles. We offer collections developed to reflect the research and teaching of academic departments, a vast array of electronic resources, and support from expert staff.
We hope that being part of the Library inspires you, empowers you and supports you in achieving your goals and objectives. Our staff are here to help, whether that’s in person at the Help Desk or via chat, email, phone, Twitter or Facebook. Outside our full service hours, we offer an out of hours chat service to help with your queries.
We value your feedback, so please do not hesitate to contact us if there is anything we can do to improve the service we offer you."
Library, Archives and Learning Services Leadership Team
Interim Director of Library and Archives
Please note: Some of the links below will take you to other areas of our website for more information on our services.
To return to this guide visit york.ac.uk/library/introduction
Can't find what you're looking for?
Contact us - we might be able to help you find what you need.
If we don’t have the item in our collections you can:
- make purchase suggestions to your Academic Liaison Librarian
- apply for items using our Interlending service through YorSearch
YorSearch is the Library search tool which helps you find the resources you need, including:
Through YorSearch you can:
Log in to YorSearch to access your Library Account. You can then:
"I liked using my Subject Guide - it was department specific and concise, and gave a wide variety of information and links."
Our Subject Guides bring together many of the most useful online resources for your department, as well as information and guidance to help you work. More help is available from your Academic Liaison Librarian, including one-to-one appointments to support you in finding and managing information resources.
You can access e-resources on and off campus, including ebooks, ejournals and databases that the Library subscribes to, through YorSearch or at subjectguides.york.ac.uk/e-resources
Don’t forget your University username (eg abc500) and password; you’ll need these to access most of our e-resources.
Find reading lists for your course on the VLE. They contain recommended books, journal articles and other materials.
All borrowable items have flexible loan periods. Flexible loans are designed to give everyone fair access to the resources they need.
As a Library user, you’re part of a community which shares the University Library’s resources - our loans service allows us to ensure that everyone gets a chance to use items in high demand. You may be asked to return an item if another user has requested it. In the spirit of our friendly student and staff community, please ensure to return items promptly. We often buy multiple copies of books to limit this.
There are laptops available to loan in the main Library, the Piazza Building study space and at the King's Manor Library. They are set up for wifi and printing and will provide access to your personal filestore and Microsoft Office.
"The book delivery service to King’s Manor has saved me time, money, and from back pain. Thank you @UoYLibrary."
Our Book Takeaway Service allows you to request access to printed books (or other items like DVDs) from the Library’s collections which aren’t available online. You can choose to:
Flexible loan items can be returned at the University Library or King’s Manor Library.
If you’re on Campus East, you can return items at our book drop in the Ron Cooke Hub; it’s available 24/7. Books are collected once a day and removed from your account when they arrive at the Library.
You can also post items back to us if you’re away from campus.
There are a number of ways you can get in touch with us for help, advice or information:
"The @UoYLibrary Twitter account is super useful for updates and they’re great at dealing with any problems you might have!"
Use LibAnswers, our online support system, to check FAQs or ask us a question.
Contact your Academic Liaison Librarian for specialist subject help, including one-to-one appointments. You can find contact details for your Academic Liaison Librarian in our Subject Guides.
Additional specialist support for staff and postgraduate research students is provided by the Library's Open Research team. Contact the team for help with open access publication, research data management, bibliometric indicators and copyright:
Our Library chat service is available to give you library related help and information.
During our full service hours you can use our chat service to contact our Library staff with queries about the Library, and our services and facilities. During self service hours, our out of hours chat service is staffed by librarians from organisations across the world. If they can't answer your query, they'll pass it back to our Library staff who will contact you the next working day.
We are committed to ensuring that all students and staff can make the best use of our services. If you have a disability which affects your use of the Library, please speak to us - where possible, we’ll provide a bespoke service. We can offer 1-to-1 meetings with library staff, either on site or online.
If you're unhappy with the behaviour of other Library users, or have noticed any building related issues, send us a text with the location and the nature of the problem to 07919 293133.
We won't reply to your text, but we'll deal with the problem as soon as possible.
See also: Behaviour in the Library
We have many types of study space, in both the main University Library on Campus West and the King's Manor Library in the centre of York. You'll need to book your study space in advance:
Need a break?
The Library Cafe can be found on the ground floor of the Morrell.
Quiet zones can be found on the south (University Road) side of floors one and two and all of the third floor in the Morrell.
Noise is kept to a minimum in these zones.
Studious buzz zones can be found in the Morrell Lounge, the group study rooms, and all of the Fairhurst.
Behaviour
To find out more about the different Library zones, visit:
Library regulations
Please also take the time to read the Library regulations; these are in place to ensure all our users get the best out of our facilities:
Our buildings
You can see the location of subject resources, study areas, PCs and other facilities in the main Library:
The Morrell houses our core collections which support your study and research in all subject areas; more specialist resources can be found in a number of different places:
The Borthwick Institute for Archives, in the main University Library, is dedicated to collecting and preserving archives, and making them widely available.
It holds archives dating from the 11th century to the present day, many with regional, national or international significance. It also houses our microform collections. You can find items in the Borthwick collections using their online catalogue, or via YorSearch.
The Library’s Rare Books collection can be accessed at the Borthwick. The collection is strong in local history, including printing, medical history, and 18th century book illustration.
The Burton, in the University Library, is home to the Elton Collection of history books and the Humanities Research reference collection.
Our library on the City Centre campus focuses on archaeology, architecture, and design.
All staff and students can use the Minster Library. Collections relate to local and medieval history, and church architecture and history.
This can be found on the ground floor of Fairhurst. This holds Blu-rays, DVDs, and CDs, and provides viewing facilities.
On the ground floor of Fairhurst, this houses music books and scores, keyboards, and PCs (with specialist music software installed).
York Digital Library provides online access to resources including images and audio. Digitised past exam papers, dissertations and theses are available to view via YorSearch.
You can develop your academic skills with a range of support services:
"Never be afraid to ask a librarian, they are friendly, helpful and also know a lot about the library (odd that)."
Each department has its own dedicated Academic Liaison Librarian. They can help you to find, manage and evaluate information resources, and can also talk to you about relevant IT tools including support for managing your references.
To find out who your Academic Liaison Librarian is, see our Subject Guides.
If you’re a member of academic staff, you can contact us to help embed core skills at an appropriate point in the curriculum. This can be via formal lectures, seminars or practical workshops to suit the needs of you and your students. Delivery and content is tailored to help students and staff find information for anything from short essays to in-depth research.
This team is based in the Fairhurst Building, providing help and support with core academic integrity skills. They offer specialist maths and writing support, including one-to-one appointments:
The Teaching and Learning team has expertise in digital literacy, including ICT literacy, information and research skills, data and media literacy. The team can help you with:
The team provides support to staff and students in the development of digital capabilities, through generic and discipline-specific training sessions, as well as one-to-one support. We also offer one-to-one consultancy on the use of digital tools to enhance teaching, research and administrative practices.
Brush up your skills
Skills Guides: Our online Skills Guides provide videos, slides and interactive tutorials to help you develop your information skills, learn to code, work with data and get creative with digital technologies. We’ll also show you how to follow good academic practice and develop your digital skills for effective reading, note-making, essay writing and problem solving.
Digital skills training: We offer workshops every week throughout term-time to help you enhance your academic and digital skills. Our digital skills training programme includes termly sessions on topics including reference management, critical skills, and designing presentations. Look out too for our weekly Digital Wednesdays where we get digitally creative with themes such as learning to code, digital storytelling and digital creativity.