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About UCL Library Services

Our expert staff provide a wide range of physical and digital services, and welcome you to our suite of inspiring learning spaces.

UCL Library Services is part of UCL Library, Culture, Collections and Open Science (LCCOS). It consists of numerous libraries and assorted learning spaces located across London, covering a wide range of specialist subjects ranging from bio-medicine and science to arts, architecture and archaeology, plus learning spaces in the Student Centre, Senate House and the Graduate Hub. Our digital library is one of the best in the world, and we manage UCL Discovery, the institutional repository which enables the world to access our researchers' work for free. We've also started the UK's first completely open access university press, UCL Press. Together, UCL Library Services is at the heart of providing the information to support UCL's academic excellence and research that addresses real-world problems, as set out in the UCL Research Strategy.

What we provide

  • expert staff to help you get the most from UCL's resources;
  • inspiring spaces for learning (individually and in groups);
  • a vast and rich collection of books, e-resources and journals;
  • access to UCL Special Collections with treasures from UCL's history at the forefront of scientific research;
  • a place to come together and share expertise.

We are a global leader in Open Science policy and implementation. The Office for Open Science and Scholarship co-ordinates work in this area across UCL. The specialist tools we've developed in bibliometrics and data management are helping researchers to exploit data as it becomes available at UCL and supporting UCL researchers to demonstrate the impact of their work.

We support UCL students and staff, NHS staff and the general public both online and on site ensuring they can access the library resources they need wherever they are. We also engage staff, students and external audiences through academic teaching sessions, exhibitions, special events, community and school links and social media.

LCCOS Annual Report, 2023

The Library, Culture, Collections and Open Science (LCCOS) Annual Report outlines the many achievements of LCCOS staff over the 2022-23 academic year. Library staff supported the development of the university’s approach to AI, opened new library space in UCL East to support the largest expansion of the university since its foundation in 1826, and worked towards a greater understanding of our collections with the aspiration to be fully inclusive of all voices and perspectives.

Read the 2023 LCCOS Annual Report

Library highlights from the LCCOS Annual Report 2023

Resource delivery

Between August 2022 and July 2023, over 1.8 million e-books were viewed and 7 million chapters were downloaded from our e-books. We offered close to 100,000 print book loans and 4,000 scan and send requests.

Online chat

In 2022-23, we answered 4,517 online chats  94% of live chat requests were acknowledged within 30 seconds and 97% of our interactions were rated good or excellent.


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