Off campus support

If you are a part-time student, a distance learner, working from home or have difficulty visiting us in person – you can access our resources and services from wherever you are. 

24/7 access to our research databases is available to our current students and staff, and all University ID card or library card holders will have online access to their library accounts.

Our Library Subject Guides will provide you with information that is specific to the subject you are studying.

They include advice on finding resources, links to useful websites, and details of how to contact your Subject Librarian or make an appointment.

Academic Study Skills Guides will help you with the planning, writing and presentation of your assignments. 

They include advice on academic writing, critical thinking and reflection, and are designed to help you become an efficient, independent learner.  You will also find details of how to contact your Skills Tutor or make an appointment.

We provide access to a wide range of databases, eBooks and eJournals so that you can find the best resources for your research.  From our Databases A–Z you can select a subject from the drop-down list to see all the recommended collections for your area.  To get access to full-text resources you will need your University issued username and password. 

You can check our Library Search page for details of the items held in stock at our site libraries in Stoke and Stafford.  

Everyone with Library membership – if you have a University of Staffordshire ID card, or a library card issued by Customer Services – will have online access to their library account.  Here you can see the details of the books you have on loan, and reserve books in advance for collection using our Click and Collect service or delivery to your home address.

For our Distance Learners, and other University of Staffordshire students and staff who can't easily visit one of our site Libraries, we offer a postal loans service within the UK only.  You can request up to 4 books at any one time.  These will be posted to you free of charge, but it is your responsibility to ensure their safe return and to pay the return postage costs.

If there is an electronic version available of any book that you request, we will email you with the details and provide a link to access the eBook instead of posting out the printed version. 

Many eBooks will be compatible with screen readers.  There are also a number of things you can change to make them more accessible to your needs.

University of Staffordshire is a member of SCONUL Access, a scheme that covers most of the academic libraries in the UK and Ireland.  

Membership is free and provides visitor access and borrowing rights to staff, postgraduates, distance learners and placement students – full-time undergraduates can apply for reference access. 

Request a digital copy is an Interlibrary Loans service that automatically matches your request to another library that holds the item you want. The service is free to use and is designed to fulfill book chapters and article requests quickly with accepted material available within 24 hours on most occasions.

It is designed to provide quick access to articles and book chapters, but not all items we don’t hold are available through this service. You can use this for articles and book chapters that are not held in the University of Staffordshire catalogue.

You can request: 

• One copy of an article from a journal issue
• One copy of a chapter from a single book

Please note that you cannot use this service to request a whole book.

Find out more on the Request a Digital Copy guide. 

The British Library is experiencing a major technology outage, as a result of what has now been identified as a cyber-attack.

The outage is affecting the British Library website, online systems and many of its services including British Library On Demand. Further information available here

British Library On Demand allows you to search and order content from over 42 million items held in the British Library's collections.

You will need to register for a British Library Online Account (select On Demand as the service) and then associate that account with University of Staffordshire Libraries.  

When you receive an email from the British Library asking you to confirm your email address. Click on the link within the email to activate your account, then forward this email to the Document Delivery team at docdel@staffs.ac.uk to notify us of your online account number. Please include your University of Staffordshire student number or staff ID to allow us to confirm your status and eligibility, and the email address that you registered with the British Library. We will contact you to confirm when your online account has been associated with our business account. 

You can then order electronic copies of chapters and articles to be delivered direct to your registered email address. Please note, you will be required to complete a Copyright Declaration form for each request made.

You can also use this service  to request copies of books for loan to your home address, please note in this case you are responsible for returning any items to the British Library (and paying the postage costs) alongside any charges for overdue, damaged or lost items you have loaned.

There is no limit to the number of requests that you can make, but please bear in mind that the service is expensive, so try to be selective.  Please also make sure that you check any items you wish to request are not freely available online. Our guide to Open Access resources in the section below will help you with this.

Sometimes we can’t fulfil requests due to availability, cost or copyright restrictions, but we will let you know of any issues.

Please note that you will be responsible for paying the return postage costs to the British Library. Loans should normally be returned by first class post. However, British Library may ask you to use some form of recorded delivery when returning an item. A return address label is enclosed with loans and should be used to return the item to the correct address.

Overdue, Damaged or Lost Items

Books on loan can be recalled by the British Library at any time – please ensure that you check your online account and emails regularly for notifications. If a loan item is not returned promptly after being recalled, an overdue charge of £5.45 will be applied.

The British Library charges a minimum of £185.50 for long overdue, damaged or lost items - this includes an administration charge of £92.75 plus VAT, which is non-refundable even if the book is returned.  This charge will be passed on to the borrower. 

How to Register for British Library On Demand

To register for a British Library Online Account, please follow the step-by-step instructions in the guides below.