Print books can be borrowed from your home library and from other partner libraries using our Inter-site loans service.
All students can borrow up to 15 items at a time. Most books can be borrowed for 4 weeks initially. We recently introduced automatic renewals which will renew your item twice up to a total of 12 weeks as long as another library user has not requested it. If another user places a hold on the item, you will be expected to return it on the next renewal date.
For any resources not covered by automatic renewal, you can renew your books online by logging into the my account page of Library Search.
If you have overdues, please contact your local library to renew them instead.
Overdue notifications are sent automatically to your UHI email address once a book is past its due date. You may also receive other email notifications to notify you that a hold is available to collect or a that a book has been recalled by the library.
We do not charge late fees for overdue items. However, if you continually ignore overdue reminders, the library may bill you for the replacement cost of the item.
You can keep track of your reading history, but you need to activate the feature in order for the system to start storing it. In 'my account', enter the 'profile' tab an ensure that 'Enable my Borrowing History' is activated.
Once activated, you can then view the 'Borrowing History' tab. Please note that the system only starts accruing your borrowing history once you have enabled the option.
When you enter a book record in Library Search you will see a list of availability at the UHI partner libraries.
Shelving location: Indicates the location of the book and the initial loan duration. Where no shelf is indicated, then the library main collection is implied.
Call number: Also know as the shelfmark or dewey Decimal number, it indicates the location of the item in the library. These numbers can be found on the spine label of books throughout the library. The main Dewey categories are:
000 Computer science, information and general works
100 Philosophy and psychology
200 Religion
300 Social Sciences
400 Language
500 Science
600 Technology
700 Arts and Recreation
800 Literature
900 History and Geography
Status: Indicates whether or not the book is currently available. If a date appears instead (eg. 19-09-22) it means the book is on loan and due back on that day.
Please ask your librarian if you have any difficulty finding a book on the shelves, they are very happy to help.
In Library Search, whenever you see the 'Place Hold' option next to a print item, you can request click & collect or a postal loan.
On selecting 'Place Hold' you will see an option to select your chosen method.
When your book is ready to collect you will receive an email notification to your UHI account. If you are requesting an item from elsewhere in UHI, it may take a few days to arrive at your home library.
Postal loans are dispatched when the item becomes available.
If you do not have convenient access to campus, please use the Freepost service to return your books. As the library service pays on receipt, please only use freepost if you cannot return the books in person for a legitimate reason. Abuse of this service may result in it being removed.
UHI subscribes to Meescan self-issue app which is an easy way to checkout items on your smartphone. Many of the UHI sites also have Meescan kiosks in the library. Further details and links to download the app can be found in the Meescan libguide.