Library Opening Hours
Study Space
Our world-class library has a variety of study space options. We have over 1000 seats (including different kinds of seating), bookable private study rooms, dedicated rooms for silent study, spaces for postgraduate students, and hundreds of thousands of books and eResources.
Every floor offers high-speed Wi-Fi, quick access and catalogue only PCs. The Library is also home to the Walsingham Garden Room and Café on the Lower Ground Floor. The café's opening hours can be found on the catering opening hours page.
Our Lower Ground Floor is a well-lit space that has computers, booths and tables for group and individual working. The Walsingham Garden Room and Café is also found on this floor. For the Café opening hours, see the Catering opening hours.
Our Upper Ground Floor is a collaborative study space with a mixture of different seating and work space options.
It also contains:
- NEST enquiry desks in the Foyer and entrance to the Library
- Print journals
- Laptop loans machine - where you can borrow a laptop for 4-hours at a time
- Self-service loan machines
- Self-service book return machine
- Two MFDs - for printing, scanning and photocopying
Our First Floor has a mixture of soft seating and study options. It also houses teaching rooms 1.20, 1.21, 1.29 and 1.30.
You will also find:
- School Experience area – this area has our school experience collection and PC’s with additional software. A full breakdown of additional software can be found on our FAQ software on School Experience PCs.
- Six study rooms – for group or individual use and have a whiteboard, computer and big screen. For more information on study rooms visit our book a study room page.
- Silent study postgraduate room – with six PCs (four on adjustable height tables) and several individual study tables.
- Several tables on the 1st floor have adjustable desks – you can move the desk up and down to get to the height you want.
- Two MFDs near the central stairs – for printing, scanning and photocopying.
Our Second Floor is a good space for individual working. There are also numerous PCs around the central atrium.
This floor also has:
- Eight study rooms – for group or individual use. Information on these rooms, including how to book, visit our book a study room page.
- Wellbeing Collection - this brand new collection can be found in the enclosed seating section at the top of the central staircase.
- Archives and Special Collections – this area has an archive room and rare books, original documents and artefacts. For more information on this area, please visit our using the archives page.
- Book rolling shelves - for help on using our rolling shelves, watch our rolling shelves video below.
Our Third Floor contains an atrium with mixed study space, including individual study spaces as well as two large study rooms with PCs. This floor is generally recommended for users wanting a quieter study environment to focus on their studies without distraction.
The floor contains:
• Weston Study Room - is a large silent study room with PCs for all students
• Maurice & Hilda Laing Study Room - is a collaborative study room for MA, MBA, MSc and postgraduate students.
• Two TVs with integrated VCR players.
• Study spaces with adjustable desks – you can move these desk up and down to get the desired height.
On every floor we have: 
• Water fountains
• Toilets, including accessible toilets
• Quick use PCs near the central stairs, for printing lecture notes or checking emails
• Catalogue use PCs, to search the library catalogue
Select the large image for a larger view of facilities
We also have: 
• Food and drinks vending machines on the Lower Ground Floor
• Multi-Functional Devices (MFDs) on Upper Ground and First Floors to print, scan and photocopy
• Four self-service machines and two book returns machines on the Ground Floor
Select the image for a large view of the range of different seating options we offer.
The University of Roehampton is working with AccessAble to provide detailed Access Guides to the buildings, services, accommodation and rooms across the four different colleges.
Please see the AccessAble Guide for the Library
Computers & Laptops
In the Library we have over 200 computers available for use.
The computers and laptops share identical standard University software. The PCs on our 1st Floor School Experience area have additional specialist software. You can find out what software we have on our computers by looking at these lists (all pdf documents):
As well as our standard PCs, around the central stairs on each floor we have:
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Two quick access PC’s – these are great if you have something quick to do
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Two catalogue PCs – these are set up for catalogue use only, so you can search our catalogue without logging on to a computer
Many of our study rooms also have computers with large screens, which are great for group work.
Students can borrow our 4-hour borrowable laptops via the LapSafe machine on the ground floor. You can borrow one laptop at a time and as soon as you've returned one, you can take out another.
For help borrowing a laptop, please speak to Library staff or view our how to borrow a four-hour laptop and our how to return a four-hour laptop infographics.
For security and privacy, all your work will be deleted from the laptop once you close the lid or the laptop runs out of battery. Make sure you save your work regularly using a USB or cloud storage - we recommend using your University OneDrive account.
If you are a student or staff member and require a laptop on a more long-term basis, please contact AVR to log a request. More information can also be found on the AVR Moodle Page.
Library Collections
Introduction to the Library collections
The Library’s goal is to maintain and develop a collection that supports students and staff at the University. The selection of resources for our collection is a collaborative process between academic staff, students and library staff. The Library will make sure the resources selected and managed are relevant, engaging, and support the curriculum.
The Library manages collections to enable students and staff to participate in the development and dissemination of world-class knowledge and ideas. To support the ways in which our students learn, we aim to have a broad selection of books and journals available digitally, enabling wider access and providing access to distance learners.
Collection Development Policy
The Collection Development Policy describes how Library Services develops and manages collections that meet the changing information needs of those learning, teaching, and researching at the University of Roehampton.
How we purchase
The Library has a goal to provide the books our students need and want. Academics help us support students with their learning by designating resources as essential reading, further reading, or reading for independent study. We aim to purchase eBooks for essential reading and keep our collections current by buying new editions as soon as they become available.
We track book usage and we will buy more copies if an items is in demand. Students and staff can also submit requests for items they want that are not available in the Library, either as an Inter Library Loan or by suggesting them for purchase.
The Resource Lists provide directions to start exploring the wide variety of resources accessible through the Library independently. The Library manages an online collection of over 130 databases of eJournals containing articles, videos, abstracts, and provides guidance on how to explore journals.
Special Collections
The University of Roehampton's rich history also means that we have extensive Archives and Special Collection on site, which you can read more about on the Special Collections page.
The University of Roehampton Library is one of the few in the UK to have a School Experience Collection available for students to use. It includes about 20,000 children’s books (fiction, poetry and nonfiction), story sacks, puppets and big books for storytelling, maths equipment, science resources, religious artefacts, and teaching packs.
Looking for a resource that we do not have?
We try have as many books, journals and articles as possible to support learning, teaching and research at the University. However, there may be times when you need something we don't have. There are a number of ways we can help you:
- If you request an Inter Library Loan, we'll try to borrow the item from another library.
- If you think there's a book we should have in the library you can fill out our Suggest a Book form.
- You can visit over 170 academic libraries in the UK using the SCONUL scheme.
You can also contact us.
Donations Policy
We appreciate that staff, students or external stakeholders may sometimes wish to donate books, periodicals or other materials to the Library. Whilst we understand the motivations behind this, it is usually not cost-effective for us to accept donations unless they very significantly enhance our collections to support the teaching, learning and research needs of the University.