Using the Library

If you do not find the material you require in SOAS Library you may find it on one of our electronic resources or you may wish to see if it is held by another library.

University of London

• Birkbeck College
• Institute of Education
• Kings College London
• LSE - London School of Economics and Political Science
• London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine
• School of Advanced Study Institute of Advanced Legal Studies,Institute of Classical Studies, Institute of Commonwealth Studies, Institute of Germanic and Romance Studies, Institute of Historical Research, Institute for the Study of the Americas and Warburg Institute.
• School of Slavonic and East European Studies (SSEES)
• Senate House Library
• University College London

Other Libraries in London

• British Film Institute (BFI) - Reuben Library
• British Library Catalogue
• British Library Manuscript Catalogue
• British Library National Sound Archive Catalogue
• British Library Newspaper Library [now closed, follow the link for information on how to access news resources]
• British Library Asia Pacific and Africa Collections
• Jewish Music Institute - print holdings included in SOAS Library catalogue. Please call 020 7898 4307 to make an appointment to access the collection.
• National Art Library - online catalogue of the National Art Library based at the Victoria and Albert Museum.
• The National Archives
• University of Westminster
• Wellcome Institute Library

UK and Ireland

• Library Hub Discovery (Jisc) - Search a database of 178 UK and Irish academic, national & specialist library catalogues 
• FLAG Foreign Law Guide - search the database to find which UK universities and national libraries have holdings of foreign, international and comparative law.
• UKIRA - UK Information Resources on Asia - find out which libraries in the UK have collections of material on Asia, the Middle East and North Africa. Search for newspaper titles from Asia and find out which libraries have staff with linguistic expertise in Asian languages.
• UK Union Catalogue of Chinese Books Includes the British Library, Cambridge, Durham, Edinburgh, Leeds, Oxford and SOAS.

Worldwide

• WorldCat - Access to over 45 million bibliographic records from hundreds of libraries, including holdings information from libraries in 45 countries.
• The European Library - national libraries in Europe.
• Libraries of the World and their catalogues
• Library of Congress - online catalog contains approximately 12 million records representing books, serials, computer files, manuscripts, cartographic materials, music, sound recordings, and visual materials.
• LibDex - index to libraries world-wide.
• KVK Karlsruher Virtueller Katalog - meta-catalogue, which provides single point access to more than 75 million records in the catalogues of German, Austrian and Swiss libraries, as well as national libraries in Europe and Worldwide.
• ICON (ICON Database of International Newspapers) - freely accessible electronic resource intended to provide reliable information on newspapers published outside of the United States. It includes bibliographic descriptions of titles as well as specific information on institutions' holdings of the same. The database serves as a central locus for information on international newspaper collections available in North American libraries and in selected libraries outside North America, providing a tool for resource discovery, access, and collection management.