Students and staff have many options for borrowing our physical resources, and can even access them away from campus.

You can browse YorSearch to see all of our books, journals and other resources. If you find something that you want to borrow that we don't have digital access to, and can't get to the shelves to retrieve it yourself, we have other ways of getting it to you.

Collect items from a more convenient location

Most of our physical resources are housed in the main University Library, but we also have collections at the King's Manor and York Minster Libraries, and even some resources stored off-site.

Our Book Delivery Service allows you to request resources to be delivered to a different pick-up location for you to collect. If the item is already on loan, your request will trigger a recall and you can choose which location to collect it from.

Have items posted to you

We're happy to post items out to those who need it through our Postal Loans service.

Postal loans are treated the same as our normal flexible loans and can be viewed from your Library account.

Receive digital scans of physical resources

Our Scan and Send service enables you to request a scan of a book chapter or article for electronic delivery. When your scan is ready we’ll send it via email. 

Currently we are only offering this as an emergency service due to staffing capacity and level of demand. 

Return items to the Library

You can always return your items in person using the Book Return Point in the main Library, which is available 8am to midnight every day, or at one of the following book drop locations on campus:

  • Outside the Morrell Library (to the right of the main entrance doors): available 24/7
  • Near the ground floor reception of Ron Cooke Hub on Campus East: available 24/7
  • At King’s Manor Library using either the book drop outside the Library entrance: available 9am to 6pm, Monday to Friday, and 9am to 5pm on Saturday; or the self-service return point inside the Library reception area: available 9am to 5pm, Monday to Friday

We will remove the items from your account when we next empty the book drop.

Return items by post

If you are not able to return items physically to any of the return points across campus, we will also accept items returned by post. Please note, however, you will need to pay any costs related to the postage.

If you returned items by post from outside of the UK before 26th July 2024, and have the receipt, please contact us and we will be able to refund your costs.

Please note that items can be recalled at any time so please be prepared to return items even when away from campus as you may incur charges if items are not returned and we need to purchase a replacement copy. 

For this reason, we also do not recommend that you take any loans out of the UK. 

If you are going to be away from York for a period of time, we recommend that you either return your items or keep them in a reachable location so you can return them if they are recalled.

Advice on returning loans by post cost-effectively

We understand that returning items by post is our only accepted method of return that isn’t free. We have therefore put together some top tips on how to post items back to us that will hopefully help save some costs should you choose to return your items to us by post.