Library and Historic Collections

A Million-Volume Library

The Library, on five sites over three campuses, is one of the largest and best equipped in Scotland, offering excellent resources to support your studies.

The largest site is Queen Mother Library (arts, science, education and social sciences) with nearly 700 study spaces. A further 600 seats are available at the other sites. Also on the Old Aberdeen campus, the Taylor Library and European Documentation Centre cover law with official UK and EU publications; Special Libraries and Archives are housed in King's College. The Medical Library on the Foresterhill Campus covers the Medicine and Medical Sciences disciplines, while the Reid Library at the Rowett Institute for Nutrition and Health focuses mainly on nutrition, both human and animal.

Our libraries hold over 1 million volumes with most easily accessible through our online catalogue. In addition to ancient papyri and archives, we also have access to thousands of books and millions of journal articles in electronic format on the web. One collection, for example, has over 40,000 recently published e-books in full text from top quality academic publishers. These resources can be accessed both on and off campus so you can study at your convenience anytime, anywhere.

The libraries have study spaces and PCs so you can use print and electronic resources together. The campus wide “wireless network” will allow you to use your own laptop in a library and connect to our electronic books and databases. You can even borrow wireless laptops for use within the Taylor Library.

New Library Project

For five hundred years the library has been at the heart of the University of Aberdeen and its collections have provided a focus for our academic community and for scholars from around the world. As the flagship project of the second phase of our Sixth Century Campaign, the University plans to undertake a £57 million project to build a new Library and Special Collections Centre, highlighting its commitment to lead education and research on a world stage. It is scheduled to open at the start of the 2011-2012 academic year.

Museums & Special Collections

As an ancient university, we are proud of our museums, archive collections and rare books, built up over 500 years, and exceptional in their richness. Special Libraries and Archives holds over 200,000 volumes printed mostly before 1840, and 4,000 archive and manuscript collections.

These are complemented by Marischal Museum and our six science collections (Anatomy Museum, Geological Collections, Herbarium, Natural Philosophy Collection of Scientific Instruments, Pathology & Forensic Medicine Collections, Zoology Museum). The University's museum collections are amongst the largest in the country and recognised as important to the Scottish Nation. All these collections are used to support taught courses in ways not possible in most other universities, and are available for individual study, research and enjoyment. Changing displays from the collections can be seen around the campuses.