About the Library

Mission of the Online Library

The Online Library's mission is to develop and maintain online resources and services in support of the present and future teaching, learning and research needs of the University of London's Distance Learning community.

We believe that:

• Access to adequate library services and resources is essential for the attainment of superior academic skills in post-secondary education, regardless of where students, faculty, and programs are located.
• Members of the distance learning community are entitled to library services and resources equivalent to those provided for students and faculty in traditional campus settings.

ACRL Guidelines for Distance Learning Library Service

Key resources and services

• Databases which contain journals, book reviews, e-books, newspapers and magazines, conference proceedings etc.
• E-books - our principal e-book database is VLeBooks
• Document Supply Services (ILL) from the British Library (BL)
• Resource Discovery Tools (Summon, A-Z Journals List)
• An enquiry service staffed by professional librarians
• The Library also plays a key role in Information Literacy training

Eligibility for services

To use the services, you must be enrolled with the University's of London distance learning programmes or a member of staff involved in delivering and supporting the distance learning programmes and directly employed by the University of London.

You can access all the Online Library’s resources using your Portal username and password. Students on SOAS courses need to access the Online Library using an Athens account. To be given an Athens account, fill in the register for Athens webform.

The Online Library Team

The Online Library is staffed by a team of professional and qualified librarians.  You can contact us at onlinelibrary@london.ac.uk or by telephone on +44 (0)20 7862 8478. You can also use the Contact Us webform or talk to us in real time using the Chat with us! tab in the bottom left corner when it is green.

We look forward to welcoming you all to the Online Library!

Dr Sandra Tury (Associate Director-Online Library Services)