Frequently Asked Questions

Alumni please register with us to access:

• Open Access resources
• Our print collection
• Other Omni libraries print collections
• A subset of our licensed electronic resources
• Our full suite of electronic resources while on campus

Community borrowers please visit the Ask Us Desk to get a library card and access to:

• Open Access resources
• Our print collection
• Our full suite of electronic resources while on campus

Alumni and community members please bring a government-issued ID to access resources on campus.  

Use Omni to browse our collections.

See our Borrowing Policy for details about alumni borrowing privileges.

In accordance with the University’s copyright guidelines, current U of G students, faculty, and staff may request that a portion of a physical item in our collection be digitized. Search in Omni to get started.

Yes. Current U of G students, staff and faculty can request physical items from Omni partner libraries. 

• Request items through Omni.
• Select your pickup location. You can choose pickup locations at other Omni partner libraries as well.
• You will receive an email notification when the item is ready. (Note: the email comes from the library you requested the item from).

 A U of G ID card is required to check out books.  

New students who have not been issued a U of G ID card yet, may not have been entered into the library system. Library staff will create a temporary account for you so you can borrow materials. Contact us.

• Students: Learn how to access course reserve materials via ARES
• Instructors: Learn how to use ARES to place materials on reserve for your course

You can pay your fines in one of two ways:

1. Call or visit the Ask Us desk and pay using a credit or debit card
2. Pay online with a credit card through Omni

Most users can borrow:

• Books for 120 days
• DVDs for 21 days

For more details, see our Borrowing Policy page.

Requests for items from an Omni partner library take approximately 3-5 business days to arrive. You will be notified by email when you have an item available for pickup. Requests for items outside the Omni consortium may take longer, depending on the lending library.

Most users can borrow up to 500 items.

See our Borrowing Policy for more information.

There is a book return inside the main entrance.

Books can also be returned to any Omni partner library.

Please take a look at our Copyright FAQs for a comprehensive overview and helpful resources.

• Refuse to use e-textbooks that don’t allow for library licensing.
• Work with library staff to identify DRM-free works for use in your courses.
• Adopt, adapt, or create an open educational resource (OER) for your course instead of a commercial textbook.
• Select a publisher that minimizes access restrictions to its e-books when you are writing a textbook.
• Work with Library staff to explore options for making the textbook you wrote more open and accessible.

Yes. The easiest way to do this is by linking to the e-book's record in Omni. Once you click on the title of the e-book in Omni, under the “Send to” menu, select “permalink” and you can copy the link.

• The book publisher determines whether and how much of the book you can print or download. You can usually print at least a few pages or a chapter of an e-book.
• Some e-books are available in PDF and can be downloaded and opened using the free Adobe Acrobat Reader.

• The library purchases e-books for use as textbooks when requested by instructors. Unfortunately, many publishers are not willing to license textbooks for university campus use.  When e-book versions are available, they are provided electronically through the Ares Course Reserve system.

1. Sign in to Omni.
2. Type in your search terms.
3. Find Resource Type on the left side of the page and narrow down your results to Books & e-Books.
4. Under Availability on the left side of the page click Available Online.
5. A list of e-books on your topic will be displayed.

• The library can scan portions of a book and post them in Ares. The Fair Dealing Guidelines allows us to copy a single chapter or up to 10 per cent of the book, whichever is greater. We will try to obtain permission from the publisher for amounts that exceed those limits, but it’s unlikely that it will be granted for large portions of a book.  
• We can create an online course pack by linking via Ares to alternate content from the library’s collection of e-books, journal articles, streaming media, and digital resources.
• We can try to acquire an alternate e-book which is suitable for classroom use. 
• We can help search for open educational resources (OER), which are freely available educational materials (including textbooks) that are openly licensed to allow for re-use and modification.

Contact us if you can't access an e-book due to your location. 

• Publishers often use digital rights management (DRM) technology to limit how many people can simultaneously read a book. These restrictions help publishers protect their intellectual property and profits. The library tries to purchase e-books with very few or no DRM restrictions whenever possible.
• If you can’t access an e-book, try again during off-peak times - early morning or on weekends.  Due to increased demand for e-books, we have limited download periods on some e-books to 24 hours to ensure that the maximum number of students have access.
• Contact us if DRM restrictions are causing access challenges. We'll consider purchasing additional copies of an e-book on a case-by-case basis.

• Publishers sometimes require this to control access to e-books. These restrictions help publishers protect their intellectual property and profits. The library tries to purchase e-books with very few or no digital rights management (DRM) restrictions whenever possible.

• Approximately 85 per cent of existing course textbooks are only available for libraries to purchase in print format.
• Textbook publishers have built their profit model around selling print and electronic textbooks (e-textbooks) directly to students. Publishers assume that if they allow e-textbooks to become available through university libraries, students will stop buying their own individual copies and their sales revenue will go down.
• In rare cases where a publisher does license an e-textbook to the library, it typically limits usage of that title to one person at a time.

Yes. U of G students, faculty, and staff can access library resources via Omni (and other databases) from anywhere at any time. Sign in to get full access.

Follow these steps to configure Google Scholar to work with U of G library resources. 

Want an easy way to access millions of journals and eBooks from the library’s collection in just one click? Learn more about the library-supported LibKey Nomad browser extension. It simplifies the process of accessing scholarly research from across the web including popular websites like Google Scholar, Wikipedia, PubMed, and more.

Omni is where you can discover millions of academic resources including books, articles, unique special collections, videos, and much more from our own library plus a consortium of Ontario university libraries.

Learn how to search, access materials, troubleshoot, and make the most of Omni.

If you can't find what you need after searching Omni, you have a few options:

1. Click the "Can't Find It?" button at the top of Omni to find our Interlibrary Loan form. Interlibrary Loan Services provides current U of G students, faculty, and staff access to materials that are not available in the U of G and Omni partner library collections. Fill out the citation of the item you need, and we will do our best to deliver that item to you as quickly as possible. 
2. You can also request materials through the Get it at Guelph button located in most other databases and through the LibKey Nomad browser extension.
3. Suggest a resource by filling out the form and we will consider a purchase or subscription.

If you found a broken link to an electronic resource that includes the word "subzero" in the URL, you'll need to update it using our OpenAthens Link Generator tool.

Otherwise, contact us.

• Most seating is available on a first come, first served basis.
• U of G students, faculty, and staff can book study rooms.
• Graduate students can book a closed study room. 

• Service dogs are welcome in the library
• Pets are not permitted

Not at this time. See our Building Use policy

Yes, you can. You may bring your laptop to attend your online courses. You can also use library computers located on the lower level and second floor.

Yes, the lost and found is located on the first floor by the emergency exit near Starbucks. You can also inquire at the Ask Us Desk.

• Students, faculty and staff can connect to the uog-wifi network using a compatible device and their University of Guelph central login account.
• Students, staff, and faculty from other Canadian educational institutions can connect to the eduroam network using their credentials from their home institution
• Other visitors can get temporary access to the uog-guest network by requesting access at the Ask Us Desk.

Learn more about how you can access the wireless network or visit the IT Help Desk in the library

To print or photocopy you must load money onto your printing account online via Papercut. We do not accept cash onsite. Scanning to a USB is free.

• Printers/Photocopiers can be found on the first floor
• Find instructions on using the printers including how to load money onto your account

Contact us via phone, email, or chat or come to the Ask Us Desk to discuss any issue related to the library.

Visitors can request temporary login credentials to access library computers at the Ask Us Desk.

Yes, food and drink are both permitted in the library.