Hertford College

The library is housed on three floors with most working stock on open access shelves. Generous borrowing arrangements and 24-hour opening mean that it is a central part of college life, and a popular place to work at any time of the day or night. The library aims to provide books which undergraduates need for their weekly essays, sometimes in multiple copies for basic texts, and students’ requests for new material are very much welcomed. Staff can respond quickly to urgent orders for book purchases, which often arrive the same day.

In addition to the library computer room, the library has both wired and wireless internet connections. Computer terminals provide access to OLIS (Oxford Library Information System), which is the on-line catalogue covering the college library’s stock as well as material in the Bodleian, Faculty and Departmental libraries and external databases.

Students check books out themselves and thus are able to make the fullest possible use of the library at all times. There are links from this page to more detailed information about the library and its working arrangements.

Hertford has an important collection of older materials, which is housed separately. Some came from Magdalen Hall, the endowments of which Hertford took over, and represent the intellectual dynamism of the hall in the 17^th century. Others survive from the eighteenth-century foundation of Hertford. Occasional exhibitions of selected books are arranged.