Frequently Asked Questions

One to one sessions with a member of the information skills team can be booked here, as and when slots become available.  Please note you would be expected to have built a search, and only one session is available per year. 

If you wish to have help with building a search, you can find a lot of information, including videos, on the Library Moodle pages, and selecting “InfoSkills & Literature Searching: Training Materials, Help and Support”.

If you’re still looking for advice, please email Library@LSHTM.ac.uk and a member of the information skills team will get in contact.

As a student or member of staff, you can sign up to Senate House Library for free and gain access to a wide range of material not available through LSHTM. 

You can sign up for Senate House Library membership here and select the registration form for London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

Online only access to Senate House Library: If you are an LSHTM student or member of staff but don't intend to physically visit Senate House, you can still access their resources remotely. To do so, use the registration form which is available through the Library, Archives & Open Research Services pages on Moodle - you will find this under the "Accessing Material Not Available at LSHTM Library" section.

We have a number of deals between the library and certain publishers covering the cost of both subscription access for our readers and open access publishing for our authors. In most cases, these deals are available to all LSHTM corresponding authors, using their LSHTM email address.

An up-to-date spreadsheet of all journals covered by our current deals, the conditions set out by each publisher and the procedures to follow can be found here. 

Do remember that publishing an article in a subscription or hybrid journal is usually free. The article processing charge is a fee set by some publishers to make a published article available open access. Fully open access journals with no article processing charges can be found on the Directory of Open Access Journals here.

We can also make a version of your published article available open access via our institutional repository. For more information, please email Library@LSHTM.ac.uk and a member of the open research team will get in contact.

The termtime library opening hours are:

Monday to Friday : 9am – 11pm
Saturday & Sunday : 11am – 8pm

We receive funds to support open access publishing for research funded by UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) and the Wellcome Trust. The funds cover the cost of immediate open access by the publisher, where it is needed in order to comply with the funder’s open access policy.

In all cases, to be eligible for open access funding, the UKRI or Wellcome Trust grant being acknowledged should be held by the School, the article should include an LSHTM author (current staff or research student), and the publisher should offer a CC BY licence.

Applications for open access funding should be made at the time of submission and the form can be found here.

To comply with other funders’ policies, you will normally need to budget for open access fees. Unfortunately, we do not maintain a general pot of funding to make published articles available open access, as there are other open access routes available. If you are unfunded, please email Library@LSHTM.ac.uk and a member of the open research team with get in contact.

All inter library loan requests must be placed using the inter library loans form on Discover

1.  Sign-in to your library account on Discover.

2.  Select the Inter library Loans link.

3.  Select Article or Book Chapter

4.  Complete each relevant item description field (fields with a * are mandatory).

5.  If you are a member of Staff or funded Research Degree Student, you must enter a Fund Code. All other students may leave this field blank.

6. If you are not currently based in London, and unable to come to the Library to collect a physical copy of an inter library loan, please add a note stating that you are 'not in London' in the Fund Code field.

7. Select Send Request

8. Read the copyright statement and select I agree with the terms.

Please note there is a charge to Staff and funded Research Degree Students for all successful interlibrary loan requests. The costs which will be allocated to the Fund Codes supplied when making these requests can be found here

If you cannot find an article or book online in Discover, there may be a print copy available.  To search for print journals, type in the title of the Journal in Discover.  If we don’t hold either online or print, you will need to order an Inter Library Loan through the link on Discover. 

Alternatively, you may be able to get the item quicker by accessing it through another Library such as Senate House Library or a nearby Library in London. 

Find out more about accessing materials from other libraries by watching this video

Thank you for contacting the Library.  Books will renew automatically for up to 12 weeks, the only reason you would need to return the item during this period is if it has been recalled, normally due to the book being requested by another student.  After 12 weeks the book will need to be returned, but can be reissued if not requested. 

Thank you for informing us of the broken article link.

Please click on the “report a problem” button underneath the article link, this will report the problem direct to the collections team.  Please ensure you include information such as the article title and journal information, as it will make investigating the issue much quicker.

If you are unable to locate the “report a problem icon” on Discover, you can report the issue using this service desk link here.

Thank you for contacting the Library.  For help with making changes to reading lists, please complete this form on Service Desk and a member of the reading lists support team will be able to help.

Our library opening hours during the vacation period are:

Monday to Friday : 9am – 8.30 pm

Thank you for your (book/ebook/journal) recommendation.  Due to budgetary constraints, requests need to be for resources within the School's teaching and research subject areas.  Please complete this form on Service Desk, and a member of the collections team will be in contact.