Q. How does the reservation system work?

If all of the copies are on loan

When you reserve an item, you will be added to a reservation queue. The reservation is placed on all copies of the item, which means as soon as the first copy is returned it will be assigned to the first person in the queue when the second copy is returned it will be assigned to the second person in the queue, and so on. Once your reservation is ready, you will receive a notification to your University e-mail address to say it is ready to collect and the site from which you can collect.

If you wish to reserve an item that is in stock

Library staff review a list of reserved titles each day and collect each item from our shelves (Monday-Friday when staffed). If cross-site delivery has been requested, we send these reserved items to the other library site as part of our daily site-to-site delivery. Once your reservation is received and is ready to collect, you will receive a notification to your University e-mail address. When you reserve an item, you will be added to a reservation queue. Please note that if there are more reservations than there are copies of the item, depending on your position in the queue you will need to wait for an item to be returned (see above).

Please note: Students registered on our Sunderland Campus cannot collect items from London Library.

Collecting and issuing your reservations

You will receive an automated e-mail notification to your University student e-mail address when your reserved items are ready to collect. Please collect your items from the reservation area at the collection site you specified when you placed your reservations and then use the self-service machines to issue them to your library account.