St Anne's College Library: Finding Books & E-Resources

SOLO is a site which serves as the catalogue for almost every library in Oxford (more than 100 libraries).  It will tell you the location of any physical book and also provide you with a link to read an e-book or electronic article if access has been paid for by the University.
If you need to read something for your course, you should always start by searching for it in SOLO and not Google.

• SOLO searches all libraries and collections in Oxford by default.  Choose St Anne’s College Library from the drop down menu to find books that are in College.  If you don’t limit your search to a specific library, you can end up with an overwhelming number of results.

• Enter keywords to make your search, then click ‘Find & Request’ on a result to see where it is.  You can put in the author’s name, the publisher or a few words from the title.  
• If you don’t find what you’re looking for, try deleting some of your search terms. If you get too many results, use the search limiters to narrow them down.

• All of our books are in ‘Hartland House’ or the ‘Tim Gardam Building’.
• The shelfmark (e.g. 372.419 ANN:REE B) tells you where it is on the shelves (Check the floorplans around the Library and on the home page here).
• If a book is on the shelf, it should say ’Available’ or 'Item in Place'. Books on loan have a ‘Due date’ listed. If you need a St Anne’s book that’s on loan to another student, just ask one of the librarians to place a hold on it for you. 
• To borrow a book, take it to the Self-Issue Machine by the library entrance. You’ll need to scan your University card and then place the book on the pad.

See our Information and Study Skills Guide for details of further help and support available with searching for and finding books and other resources in St Anne's and elsewhere. 

Our main system is the Dewey Decimal Classification 

Most books are organised numerically by subject (820s are English Literature) and then subdivided after the decimal point (821.171 is Chaucer).  If there are any letters after the decimals, these books go at the front of the sequence in alphabetical order eg. 821.171 CHA:Can ... 821.171 77 ... 821.2 JON:Jam

Named Collections

Some sections of the Library are grouped as named collections, in the New Reading Room on the ground floor of Hartland House Library.

Signing into SOLO will give you the best experience. You will be able to see which books you can borrow and request from different libraries, place Click & Collect requests, and view your library account to renew your loans.

It's also important to sign in to SOLO if you want to access e-resources. If you don't do this, you may be confronted with a 'paywall' when you get to an external website and won't be able to access the material you are trying to read.

Find the Sign In button in the top right of SOLO and use your Single Sign On credentials.

If you see a record which says that multiple versions exist, click it and you will normally be able to find out about physical books and e-books. 

E-books and electronic articles show up on SOLO with a green dot for • Online access next to the title.

Click the link and you’ll be taken to a publisher or supplier's website for access.  If you haven’t signed in to SOLO, this won’t work!

Records may also show with and orange dot for • Electronic Legal Deposit Item. These can only be viewed on Bodleian Libraries PCs.

Online Journal Articles

Articles are short focused academic essays written by experts in their field.  They usually have a much narrower focus than an academic monograph (book).  Nearly all journal articles are now published online.

Pearce, J. The unfolding of the historical style in modern cosmology: Emergence, evolution, entrenchment, Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics, 57, pp.17-34.

Author = Pearce, J.
Article Title = The unfolding of the historical style in modern cosmology: Emergence, evolution, entrenchment
Journal Title = Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics
Journal Issue = 57
Page Range = pp.17-34

To find this article online (on SOLO), you would normally only need to search for the 'Article Title'.  If it isn't available online, you'd need to look for the 'Journal Title' instead.

E-Books

 Many books are published both in print and as e-books.  If they are available in either format they will be listed on SOLO.

Sometimes you can find an e-book chapter just by searching for its title, but its generally best to search for the title of the book.

Academic databases can be very varied.  Some contain articles, like The Times Digital Archive, which holds back issues of The Times newspaper.  Others have abstracts, statistical data, images, maps, audio files, videos or a mixture of any of these.

It can be difficult to find an appropriate database unless you know what you are looking for.

Use the Database A-Z page to find a relevant database to your topic.