Centre for Lifelong Learning

As a registered student with the University through The Centre for Lifelong Learning (CCL), you have the same rights as all our undergraduate students.

Borrowing Entitlement

• Access, certficate or undergraduate courses: 20 items from any of our libraries.
• Taught postgraduates: 20 items.
• IMPORTANT NOTE: All borrowing is subject to instant recall by other readers. You must check your University email address regularly for recall messages.

Borrowing by Phone

• Quote your University matriculation number whether you have a card or not.
• You must have your card with you to borrow items when you visit a library.

Borrowing at a Distance

We will post 4 week loan and long loan books to you if you are a distance student. You will have to pay the postage both ways.

We regret we cannot lend items from our Heavy Demand Collection (overnight loan) or those on 3-day loan. We may be able to photocopy small sections from these, subject to copyright (5% or 1 chapter per book).

Costs

• Postage both ways for book loans
• Photocopies of short loan material: 10p per A4 page of the original item + postage. There is a minimum charge of £2.50 per batch of requests + postage.

What to do

If you want material posted to you please provide the following information:

• that you are a Distance Student with CLL
• the name or code number of your course
• your name and student ID number
• your address & phone number

Loan Periods

Most library material is available for loan. To cater for differing needs, varying loan periods are used as outlined on our Using the Library web page.

We notify you by e-mail using your '@aberdeen.ac.uk' account (you get this automatically when you register). Please check your e-mails regularly. You must make a written submission to the Librarian to be notified by post.

Fines are charged for late return. Full details are listed on our Using the Library web page.

You’ll find our searching tools, including our new resource discovery tool Primo and the library catalogue, on our Search Our Collections web page.

Library Catalogue

Everything in print is listed on our catalogue which you can search by author, title, keyword in title and subject.
Search using the library catalogue.

See Library Guide: QG CAT003 How do I use the catalogue? (PDF)

Primo

PRIMO is our resource discovery tool for print and electronic resources across all our collections in libraries, special collections and even museum objects.

You must login to Primo to get access to electronic materials.
Search using Primo.

See Library Guide: QG PRI001 Primo - a quick guide (PDF)

Print Resources

We have over a million printed books, and millions of *journal articles available electronically from our databases. Virtually everything is listed on our library catalogue which you can search by author, title, keyword in title and subject.

Journals are an important source of information and the library subscribes to over 18,000 titles, most of which are available electronically. 

*NOTE: All journal titles are listed on the catalogue, but the individual articles within them are not. Search for articles on databases or on our integrated search system, Primo.

Where to find print resources

For complete listings see Library Guide: QG GI13 Where Is It Shelved? A General Guide (PDF).

Accessing electronic resources

• Many of our resources are only available electronically, some are in both print and electronic format, a few in print only. 
• Most electronic resources are found in databases hosted on the Internet but their access is restricted to members of the University.
• Access is controlled through either:
  • login using your University computer username and password (via the Shibbobeth/UK Federation service) or
  • through the University's network IP address
• To access our databases off campus you should add the University's proxy address to the web browser on your home computer. To do this follow the instructions on the Web Proxy pages.

How to find databases

Find out which resources are available in your subject area by using:

• PRIMO (select Advanced Search, then Find Databases)
  or
  MetaLib (select Find Databases)

Links to both are available on our Search Or Collections web page.

Using the Shibboleth Login

• Most databases need a login using your University username and password to access library databases.
• The login link can be called a variety of names - Shibboleth, Institutional Login, Login or UK Access Management Federation. Do not use Athens.
• Before you can access resources you need to register as a University computer user. This will have been done when you e-registered for your course.
• To get the best possible use always login to our search tools and databases.

What we have

We have a wide range of electronically available resources. Bibliographic and full-text databases are listed and described in PRIMO/Metalib. You can search by subject area, keyword or by name. Databases hosted on the Web and on cd-roms (available only in the library) can be found.

Of particular interest is the Ebrary database of over 70,000 high quality, recently published, academic level books. Access is through the normal Shibboleth authentication route using your University username and password.

See Library Guide: QG DBS004 Ebrary (PDF)
See Library Guide: QG PRI001 Primo - Quick Guide (PDF)
See Library Guide: QG MTL001 MetaLib - Quick Guide (PDF)