Catalogues and e-resources

The Library houses over 1.3 million volumes at the SOAS campus at Russell Square in central London, together with a major collection of e-books and e-journals. 

Most of our books and journals are kept on open shelves, but we also provide access to many resources in electronic format which complement the Library's print collection and support research into the regions of Africa, Asia and the Middle East.

Students and staff can consult the SOAS Library catalogue and A-Z list of Databases.  

External library users including SCONUL Access and alumni members can access most of the e-resources at SOAS Library. To access these e-resources users will need to have a library membership card and log in details.   

External library users can use e-resources on three terminals on Level E, close to the enquiry desk.

Alumni members have off-campus access to JSTOR archival content and Project Muse database. To access this resource, you will need to register with the SOAS Alumni (free).  

When using one of the databases to which the library subscribes, you are obliged to abide by its terms or conditions of use. Please check under the A-Z database list for terms of use for individual databases.

Our archive catalogue provides access to over 100,000 catalogue entries across more than 400 unique archive collections and over 250 artworks and objects. 

SOAS Special Collections is a part of the SOAS Library, the UK’s National Research Library for Asia, Africa, and the Middle East at SOAS University of London. Our collections reflect and document the relationships between Britain and these regions, from the colonial period to the current globalised world. 

These collections offer a unique and invaluable resource for learning and research. Cataloguing our collections is an ongoing process. We are continually working to add more descriptions to our online catalogue. If you cannot find what you are looking for, please contact us.

Our Online Card Catalogue features items acquired by SOAS Library before 1989 that have not yet been included in the main SOAS Library Catalogue. 

This card catalogue is intended as a back-up covering some older material. 

When accessing the catalogue, you will have two options: 

• 'Browse the cards' to browse scanned images of catalogue cards. This function replicates the original card catalogue. 
• 'Search the cards' to search the full-text of the cards.

We have ongoing programmes of retrospective catalogue conversion. As book details are added to the SOAS Library Catalogue, it will be removed from Online Card Catalogue. 

Digitised and born digital collection items are openly accessible online.  

The SOAS Digital Library Portal is comprised of collections, organized into collection groups and subdivided into sub-collections. Currently, there are 8,608 total items in SOAS, which make up 6,410 different titles. 

The Digital Collections catalogue is currently only available to access Monday-Friday, 9:00am-5:00pm. 

The Library provides access to bank of e-resources which complement the Library's print collection and support research into the regions of Africa, Asia and the Middle East. 

These e-resources include over 200 databases as well as thousands of e-books, electronic journals, and past exam papers.

LibGuides is an online guide that helps you find detailed information and content about the library collections, resources, services and who your subject librarian is for when you need further help. It is a user-friendly place to start your research. 

The guides and information found in LibGuides will assist you to access the library resources, services and how to use the library. 

SOAS Research Online is a free database of the latest research by SOAS academics and PhD students, including theses. 

Its aim is to provide a permanent record of the research output of the university and maximise the visibility, usage and impact of its research by providing, free access to outputs to any member of the public with an internet. We will strive to make as much of our research available to a global audience including members of the media, policy makers, NGOs and research institutes and researchers who may not otherwise have access to SOAS research. 

Content 

SOAS Research Online holds records and full-text of research publications except for: 

• learning Objects 
• software 
• patents 

Full-text items may include: 

• Pre-prints (drafts prior to the peer-review process).
• Post-prints/accepted versions/author’s accepted manuscripts (final drafts that include changes resulting from the peer-review process but prior to publisher formatting and copy-editing).
• Versions of record (final published versions).

Full-text items are individually tagged to indicate version. Primary language is English but records of publications in other languages are also included.

If you are unsure about how to find anything in the library catalogues, please contact staff will be pleased to help.