Getting started: Undergraduates and taught postgraduates

You will need to book to attend a welcome tour at the Art, Archaeology and Ancient World Library. Welcome tours last 30 minutes and are running on the following dates:

• Wednesday 7 October: 10am, 11am, 2pm, 3pm, 4pm
• Thursday 8 October: 10am, 11am, 2pm, 3pm, 4pm
• Friday 9 October: 10am, 11am, 2pm, 3pm, 4pm
• Monday 12 October: 10am, 11am, 2pm, 3pm, 4pm

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Can’t make it to one of our scheduled tours? We’re happy to show new and returning readers around after term has started. Please ask at the library issue desk or email us at artlib-enquiries@bodleian.ox.ac.uk (subject to staff availability).

You can drop in to attend a welcome tour at the Bodleian Old Library. The tour also includes the Radcliffe Camera and Gladstone Link. Welcome tours last 30 minutes and are running on the following dates:

• Wednesday 7 October: 10am, 11am, 12pm, 2pm, 3pm, 4pm
• Thursday 8 October: 10am, 11am, 12pm, 2pm, 3pm, 4pm
• Friday 9 October: 10am, 11am, 12pm, 2pm, 3pm, 4pm

You can drop in to attend a tour in the Radcliffe Camera, which also includes the History Lending Collection. Welcome tours last 30 minutes and are running on the following dates:

• Wednesday 7 October: 10.30am, 11.30am, 12.30pm, 2.30pm, 3.30pm, 4.30pm
• Thursday 8 October: 10.30am, 11.30am, 12.30pm, 2.30pm, 3.30pm, 4.30pm
• Friday 9 October: 10.30am, 11.30am, 12.30pm, 2.30pm, 3.30pm, 4.30pm

You can drop in to attend a tour at the Humanities Library in the Schwarzman Centre for the Humanities. The subjects covered by the Humanities Library collections are English language and literature, film studies, history of medicine, music, philosophy, theology and religion, and internet studies.

Please come to the main library entrance on the first floor of the Schwarzman Centre. Welcome tours last 30 minutes and are running on the following dates:

• Wednesday 7 October: 10am, 10.30am, 11am, 11.30am, 2pm, 2.30pm, 3pm, 3.30pm, 4pm, 4.30pm
• Thursday 8 October: 10am, 10.30am, 11am, 11.30am, 2pm, 2.30pm, 3pm, 3.30pm, 4pm, 4.30pm
• Friday 9 October: 10am, 10.30am, 11am, 11.30am, 2pm, 2.30pm, 3pm, 3.30pm, 4pm, 4.30pm
• Monday 12 October: 10.30am, 2.30pm
• Tuesday 13 October: 10.30am, 2.30pm
• Wednesday 14 October: 10.30am, 2.30pm

You will need to book to attend a welcome tour at the Japanese Library. Welcome tours last 20 minutes and are running on the following dates in 0th Week:

• Monday 5 October: 9.15am
• Tuesday 6 October: 9.15am
• Wednesday 7 October: 9.15am
• Thursday 8 October: 9.15am

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Library welcome tours at the KB Chen China Centre Library will be organised as part of your faculty induction programme and will place on the Friday of 0th Week. Students may attend the induction through arrangements made by their faculty.

Welcome tours of the Law Library are organised as part of faculty undergraduate and postgraduate inductions, giving students an opportunity to get to know the library, its spaces and the services available to support their studies. More information can be found on Canvas.

If you have any questions about welcome tours or would like to arrange a visit, please email law.library@bodleian.ox.ac.uk. A member of the Law Library team will be happy to help.

The welcome tour at the Leopold Muller Memorial Library will take place on Friday 9 October 2026 at 11am, and will last 45 to 60 minutes.

Please email muller.library@bodleian.ox.ac.uk to confirm your attendance.

Welcome tours at the Nizami Ganjavi Library are organised as part of your faculty induction on Friday of 0th Week. If you have any enquiries about tours, please email ngl-enquiries@bodleian.ox.ac.uk.

You will need to book to attend a welcome tour at the Radcliffe Science Library. Welcome tours last 30 minutes and are running on the following dates:

• Wednesday 7 October: 10am, 11am, 12pm, 2pm, 3pm, and 4pm
• Thursday 8 October: 10am, 11am, 12pm, 2pm, 3pm, and 4pm
• Friday 9 October: 10am, 1 am, 12pm, 2pm, 3pm, and 4pm

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You can drop in to attend a welcome tour at the Sainsbury Library – no booking is needed. Please report to reception at Saïd Business School. Welcome tours last 30 minutes and are running on the following dates:

• Tuesday 6 October: 10am, 3.30pm
• Wednesday 7 October: 10am, 3.30pm
• Thursday 8 October: 10am, 3.30pm

You can drop in to attend a welcome tour at the Social Science Library – no booking is needed. Welcome tours last 30 minutes and are running on the following dates:

• Monday 26 October: 11.30am, 3pm
• Tuesday 27 October: 11.30am, 3pm
• Wednesday 28 October: 11.30am, 12pm, 3pm
• Friday 30 October: 12.30pm

The Social Science Library provides bespoke welcome sessions for the postgraduate taught courses it supports. These are arranged directly with the host departments.

You will need to book to attend a welcome tour at the Taylor Institution Library. Welcome tours last 30 minutes and are running on the following dates:

• Wednesday 7 October: 9.30am, 10.30am, 11.30am, 2.30pm, 3.30pm, 4.30pm
• Thursday 8 October: 9.30am, 10.30am, 11.30am, 2.30pm, 3.30pm, 4.30pm
• Friday 9 October: 9.30am, 10.30am, 11.30am, 2.30pm, 3.30pm, 4.30pm
• Monday 12 October: 9.30am, 10.30am, 11.30am, 2.30pm, 3.30pm, 4.30pm
• Tuesday 13 October: 2.30pm, 4.30pm

Book now

You can drop in to attend a tour at the Vere Harmsworth Library, based in the Rothermere American Institute. Welcome tours last 30 minutes and are running on the following dates:

• Wednesday 7 October: 10.30am, 2.30pm
• Thursday 8 October: 10.30am, 2.30pm
• Friday 9 October: 10.30am, 2.30pm, 3.30pm

Hello and welcome to this Bodleian Libraries welcome for new undergraduate and visiting students.

This is a recording of the welcome webinar that took place in Michaelmas term of the academic year 2026 to 27. There will be a combination of PowerPoint presentation and live demonstration. The webinar will run through the basics of what you need to get started in the Bodleian Libraries.

Moving on to what we'll be covering today and the learning outcomes: by the end of this webinar, you will understand how to find and access items on your reading lists, the network of the Bodleian Libraries, the computers, Wi-Fi and print, copy, scan facilities, what disability support there is and where to get further help. We are going to follow a student's journey as they settle into the university and how to use the Bodleian Libraries.

Meet Amy. Amy is a new first year undergraduate student at Balliol College studying mathematics and philosophy.

Amy has been given a reading list by her tutor in PDF format. It is on the topic of general philosophy. The list has some readings she needs to complete before her lecture. Amy happens to be in her college library and goes to the enquiry desk for help from the library staff.

The staff explain this citation to her. The book's author is Jennifer Nagel. The book title is Knowledge: A Very Short Introduction. The book was published in Oxford by Oxford University Press and it was published in 2014.

Where does Amy need to go to search for the book? The library staff explain that Amy needs to search for the book title and book author on SOLO, the university's resource discovery tool. SOLO stands for Search Oxford Libraries Online.

Amy will need to check any references in her PDF reading list in SOLO.

For the best results, Amy signs into SOLO with her Single Sign On credentials via the web address https://solo.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/. Amy will have received her Single Sign On credentials ahead of her arrival at Oxford. Logging into SOLO means you will see more results, especially for online material, and you can access your own account where you will see your loans and any requests you have placed.

Time to move on to a live demonstration of SOLO. For speed, I am already signed into SOLO, but you'll find the login button in the top right of the screen.

I am going to type into the search bar the author's surname and a couple of keywords for the book on Amy's PDF reading list: 'Nagel knowledge short introduction'. Click on the magnifying glass icon to perform the search.

Amy sees that the book is the first result in the list, as it has the title 'Knowledge: A Very Short Introduction' and the author 'Nagel' listed. Amy sees that there are multiple versions of the book available and clicks '2 versions of this record exist. See all versions'.

Amy can now see the two different versions. SOLO displays an online version and one printed version of the book. SOLO shows that both of the versions are tagged as being on a course. This means that these records are linked to an online reading list. We'll talk more about those later.

Amy chooses to look at the electronic version of the book, or ebook, and clicks 'Online Access'.

Amy is taken through to the ebook record in SOLO, where she finds a link under 'View Online'. This takes her to the ebook provider's website, where she can read the book online. Each ebook provider's website looks and functions differently, with different permissions on how many people can view the books at once and how many pages you can download.

Amy decides to see which libraries have a print copy of the book, so navigates back to the results by clicking the X button to the left of the screen, which returns her to the set of two similar versions.
Amy clicks 'Find & Request' to view further details about the print version of the book.

This brings up a list of libraries that have at least one copy of the book.

Amy can see that the Humanities Library, which any member of the university can use, is in the list of libraries which have the book.

The Humanities Library has at least one copy of the book, which is available right now.

Clicking again, she can see more details about this item. She can see that it is loanable, which means she can borrow it. Some books might say here that they are to use in the library only.
The information about the length of the loan is personalised to the student signed in. So, it may look different to different students and at different times of the academic year.

Many of the Bodleian Libraries books are available on the open shelves like this one. This means that Amy can walk into the library and look for the book herself on the library shelves. She can visit the Humanities Library straight away and borrow it. She can see which section of the library the book is in from the item location. In this case, the item lives in the Level 1 Books section at the Humanities Library. The code of letters and numbers is called the shelf mark or call number, and that tells Amy where exactly on the shelves she can find the book. She makes a note of these details ready for when she goes to the Humanities Library.

By clicking 'Back to locations', then clicking on the other line, Amy can see that the other copy at the Humanities Library is in use until the 30th of September. Luckily, she has already seen that there is a copy immediately available. However, if there were no copies currently available at the Humanities Library, she could choose to use the Request Options.

The Request Options button only appears when you are signed into SOLO. Request Options allow Amy to either request the book that is out on loan from the Humanities Library, or request a copy from Offsite Storage. Offsite Storage is a good alternative if the book isn't available on the open shelves, the areas where Amy can get books directly herself in the libraries she usually uses. She can request a copy to be delivered from the Storage Facility to one of the Bodleian Libraries, not the college libraries. It usually takes one working day to arrive.

A lot of these books from the Storage Facility can be borrowed to take home. But sometimes SOLO might say 'Use in library only', so Amy would have to read the book in the place it is delivered to.
If every copy of a book in the Humanities library is on loan, Amy can replace a request on the copies that are out on loan. This will send another reader an email telling them that they can't do any more renewals, and that the book needs to be taken back to the library. To place a request, Amy will use the same Request Options button.

Books that are out on loan must be returned to the library from which they came and collected from there as well. For this reason, you might only see one library in the list of delivery options when you request a book that is on loan. It will be pre-selected and have a padlock symbol next to it.

You are prompted to check for items in place when making a request, as the item might be available at another library on the open shelves, which could be quicker than waiting for the Offsite Storage copy to be delivered, or for another student to return the copy they have on loan.

Amy goes back to the list of libraries on SOLO by clicking 'Back to locations' and 'Back to libraries'.

She looks for the information button next to the Humanities Library. This takes her directly through to the information about this library on the Bodleian Libraries web pages.

Most usefully for Amy, we can see the opening hours of the library as well as its address. Amy knows this location, and it's very easy for Amy to get to. One thing she needs to take with her is her University card. She will need to use this card to get into all university buildings and libraries. Most doors will have a card reader on them.

Amy is doing some further reading around her subject and wants to read the introduction to the book Consequentialism and Its Critics edited by Samuel Scheffler. First, she does a new search on SOLO to see whether there is an ebook from which she could download the introduction. There is no ebook this time, so she looks to see which libraries have a copy by clicking 'Find & Request'. Amy sees that the Humanities Library has a copy, so clicks on the Humanities Library. There are lots of copies here, but Amy goes for the first item in the list.

Amy notices the 'Scan & Deliver' button next to the Request Options. This option means that library staff will scan a section of the item for her and send it to her in PDF format via email. If you cannot make it to the library to consult a physical copy of a book, this is a good option. Things to note about Scan & Deliver: you can place up to two requests at any one time; you may only request up to one chapter or article from any book or journal issue as governed by copyright legislation (we can't copy a whole book); if there is already an ebook version on SOLO library staff will usually ask you to use that instead; requests are normally fulfilled within seven days, but often much sooner; Scan & Deliver is free. Amy is very pleased because it is one less book to carry home from the library.

Amy has one last reference to look up on SOLO, which is for a journal article. She can tell it is a journal article, as the citation on her reading list shows the author Crisp, article title 'Mill on Virtue as Part of Happiness', journal title 'British Journal for the History of Philosophy', volume number 4, issue number 2, date of publication 1996, and the page range 367 to 380, which are all clues that this is a journal article.

Journal articles are a bit like chapters from a book, but the journal is published containing several different articles on similar topics several times each year. Most journal articles are available online for Oxford students via SOLO.

So, Amy starts a new search and types in the author's name and keywords from the article title to see if it is available. The article is nice and easy to find, and Amy can click on 'Get PDF' or 'Online Access' to get straight to the article.

So far, we have found via SOLO books and an article that were on a PDF reading list given to Amy by her tutor. The Faculty of Philosophy has published an online reading list, and Amy needs to read a chapter in an electronic book or ebook.

Amy accesses her course on Canvas (https://canvas.ox.ac.uk/), which is the university's Virtual Learning Environment for teaching and learning, where you can access course materials, get feedback on your work, start discussions and collaborate with other students or academics and access your reading lists where available. Amy needs her Single Sign On credentials to log in to Canvas. From her course in Canvas, she can open her ORLO reading list. ORLO stands for Oxford Reading Lists Online. Here we have Amy's reading list in ORLO.

Amy's been told by her tutor that in the reading list, there is a book chapter she needs to read called Mill's Theory of Rights. As Amy is unsure where to find it in the reading list, she uses the search function at the top of the page and enters the chapter title. The chapter is in the book 'The Blackwell Guide to Mill's Utilitarianism' edited by Henry West. Below the title there is a 'View Online' option. Amy can click on this, and it takes her to a digital scan of the chapter which the library has created for students. Sometimes, if the whole book is available electronically, it will take her to the exact chapter in the full ebook.

The 'Find & Request at University of Oxford' link will show information imported from SOLO about where she could get a copy of the whole print book if she wished.

You can find a page of tips for using ORLO on the Bodleian Libraries website: https://www.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/collections-and-resources/reading-lists.

Amy wants to know how many books she can borrow at once. She's got a lot of reading to do, so she needs to keep an eye on how much she's borrowing. She goes back on the Bodleian Libraries web pages, opens the Services menu, and clicks 'Borrow & Reserve' (https://www.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/services/borrow). This page will give you a lot of helpful information about borrowing, including most helpful to Amy information about loan limits for undergraduates. There's a lot of detail here, but the headlines are that she can borrow up to 20 items across the Bodleian Libraries; loans will automatically renew for a maximum of 16 weeks; if a book has been requested by another reader, return the book by the due date; if you have overdue books, you'll be blocked from borrowing anything else.

Amy's college library will have its own separate rules about borrowing.

But Amy doesn't just want to borrow books. She's also looking for somewhere she can sit down and study for a few hours with a nice cup of coffee.

If we click this Libraries button at the top of the page (https://www.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/libraries), you will see a list of all 22 Bodleian Libraries. That's quite a lot of libraries to choose from, but helpfully you can filter them by lots of different factors.

For example, Accessibility signposts facilities like induction loops and step free access. Under 'Facilities' Amy can filter to libraries that have group study areas, and she can browse all the group study rooms across the Bodleian Libraries via this link towards the top of the page. Under 'Open' Amy can filter according to library's opening hours and use 'Atmosphere' to filter to libraries that allow you to bring your own coffee in a KeepCup. Luckily, the Humanities Library where she has travelled today does allow coffee in a reusable cup.

It is worth noting that some departments also have their own libraries outside the Bodleian Libraries group. For example, the Department of Earth Sciences has its own library. Each of the colleges has its own library too. Whilst you can use any of the Bodleian Libraries, you can only use the library in your college and not other colleges.

While borrowing her book from the Humanities Library, Amy notices an interesting looking book on the library shelves called 'Intricate Ethics: Rights, Responsibilities and Permissible Harm'. She knows her tutor mentioned a chapter in this book, which is especially useful for one of her upcoming essays for another course. She asks the library staff whether she can use the book, and they explain that it is for use in the library only, but she would be welcome to photocopy or scan a chapter of the book for herself using the PCAS service.

Amy asks what PCAS stands for, and the staff member explains that it stands for Print, Copy and Scan and shows Amy a leaflet explaining how she can get started using PCAS. Her username is her University card barcode number and she can set her password at register.bodleian.ox.ac.uk. They also explain that scanning is free of charge, but Amy would need to add some credit to her account to make a photocopy or to use the service to print, and the credit is added via the web address pcas.bodleian.ox.ac.uk.

Amy decides to scan the chapter and email it to herself. She sets up her PCAS account on her phone, finds the PCAS scanning machines, then taps her university card on the card reader. She then enters her PCAS account details. Helpfully, that means her card is now linked to her PCAS account so all she needs to do in future to use any of these machines in any of the Bodleian Libraries is tap her university card.

The machine automatically fills in her college email address. So she scans the pages she needs and the PDF appears in her emails on her phone straight away. She can see the copyright notice on the wall says that she can scan one whole chapter of the book and stay within UK copyright law, but she wouldn't be allowed to scan more than one chapter from the same book.
Amy knows she would like to print out the first draft of her essay later in the week, so she goes to pcas.bodleian.ox.ac.uk and adds some credit there, ready for when she has finished the draft.

Later that day, Amy decides to work in the reading room of the Taylor Institution Library and gets out her laptop to work on her essay. She wants to connect it to the Wi-Fi network, so she looks in her list of networks and sees Eduroam, which she has already used in college. She also sees 'Bodleian Libraries' in the list of networks. She could connect to that network instead using the same details she used to sign into PCAS.

Unfortunately, her laptop is running out of battery power, and she has forgotten her charger. She asks to borrow a charger at the library desk. The library normally has a few, but they have already been borrowed by other students. The library assistant suggests using a library PC instead. He explains that to log in to a library PC, Amy needs to use the same Bodleian Libraries login details she used for the PCAS service.

What has Amy learned here? That there is a Bodleian Libraries username and password, which is separate from your Single Sign On credentials. This account is used for connecting to the Bodleian Libraries Wi-Fi, logging on to the reading room PCs and the Print, Copy and Scan facilities. You set your password on the Bodleian Libraries web page.

Amy has dyslexia and is worried she won't be able to read her books by their due date. She mentioned this to a member of staff at the Taylor Institution Library, who happens to be the Disability Liaison Librarian. They explain that Amy automatically gets a longer borrowing period for books due to her registration with the Disability Advisory Service and loans for all students will automatically renew if no other student has requested them. They also inform Amy that there is a Bodleian Libraries Disability Librarian, and information about the support they provide is on the web page on the slide: bodleian.ox.ac.uk/services/disabled-readers.

After speaking to the Disability Librarian, Amy learns that she can use SensusAccess for free, which converts documents into alternative formats. She likes the idea of converting some of her reading into an MP3 file, so that she can listen to it on the move.

The following week, Amy cannot find a book that she wants to read. She talks to the philosophy subject librarian who she finds via the Subject Librarians web page on the Bodleian Libraries website. The web address is bodleian.ox.ac.uk/ask/subject-librarians.

The subject librarian confirms the Bodleian Libraries do not yet have a copy of the book and suggest that Amy fills in the Recommend a Purchase form (https://www.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/collections-and-resources/recommend-a-purc...).

The subject librarian makes Amy aware of all the ways she can get further help if she needs it in the future. Amy can: ask library staff in person when she is in the library; use the Live Chat service available on SOLO and on the Bodleian Libraries website; she can email her subject librarian, details of which are on the website; she can email her subject librarian whenever she wants, as she has already done; she can contact the central Reader Services team who are very knowledgeable and can be contacted about anything in the Bodleian Libraries. The email address is reader.services@bodleian.ox.ac.uk.

To summarise what you have hopefully learned by the end of this presentation, we have covered how to find and access items on your reading list using SOLO and ORLO, the network of the 22 Bodleian Libraries and its services, such as borrowing permissions and study spaces, computers, Wi-Fi, PCAS, the Scan & Deliver service, disability support and further help.

Thank you very much for listening.

• Welcome webinar presentation (pptx)