Academic Staff

The library purchases new books, journals and databases to support the courses at the university.   All requests should be forwarded to your information librarian.

On average it takes around 10 working days for an order for a print book to be fulfilled by our book sellers, so please allow plenty of time.  eBooks can be made available much more quickly.  The time taken to set up a new subscription with a journal publisher or database supplier varies considerably and is dependent on a number of factors (e.g publishing and subscription cycles). We will advise you of expected timescales on each individual order.

Academic staff are welcome to suggest new journal subscriptions for their courses, however as they are an on-going financial commitment, the library has to be certain that there will substantial usage by students and staff.  Journal usage is reviewed each year.   You will be kept informed of the decision, either way. 

Academic staff can have 30 inter-library loans a year and it often more cost-effective to go down this route rather than subscribe to poorly used journal.  Where an article is for a reading list it is often possible to acquire a licenced digistised copy for student use.  

Please note, we can usually only accommodate new subscriptions by cancelling other, less well-used subscriptions to an equivalent value.

Books are bought to support the reading lists.  You can request new titles at any time and subject to funds they  will be purchased.  

To request an item, contact your information librarian with details of the book, the module(s) it will be used on and the approximate number of students.

Please note if an ebook copy is available at a suitable cost and license level, the ebook will be purchased or a mix of ebook and print will be purchased to meet anticipated demand.

The library can order materials on your behalf for your school or research purposes.  The library has arrangements in place with suppliers that mean we can usually arrange orders and set up subscriptions without the need for you to raise purchase orders and you will benefit from the discounts we receive under the nationally negotiated book suppliers and subscription agents.

The easiest way to order an item is to send an email to your information librarian. Make sure you include the following information:

•  a cost centre with your order so we can recharge your school or service for what has been bought

• ensure you have the budget holder's approval for what is being bought. If you are not the budget holder yourself, you will need to have your order authorised by them or by your school's finance officer

• books - please provide an author, title and ISBN (you can usually find these on Amazon's website). If the publication is from a very small, independent publisher, please provide a web link if possible

• journals/ejournals - if possible, please provide a web link to the publisher’s details for any print or ejournal titles you want to subscribe to.

Increasingly many resources are being made available open access.  You may wish to look at some the links on the Open Access LibGuide