About Us

• Visitor Information
• Exhibitions and Events
• Bodleian Shop
• Hiring a Venue
• Filming
• Supporting the Library
• Meet Bodley's Librarian
• History of the Bodleian
• Bodleian Libraries Operations
• Policies, Reports and Strategy
  • Service Standards
  • Copyright Information

 

Home  »   About Us  »  Policies, Reports and Strategy  »  Service Standards

Preamble

The Bodleian Library group is comprised of the central Bodleian, the Radcliffe Science Library, the Bodleian Library of Commonwealth and African Studies at Rhodes House, the Bodleian Law Library, the Bodleian Japanese Library, the Institute for Chinese Studies Library, the Oriental Institute Library, the Philosophy Library, and the Vere Harmsworth Library. In turn, the Bodleian Library group forms part of the larger organisation, Bodleian Libraries of the University of Oxford.

The Library's Mission Statement defined our mission as that of maintaining and developing collections and services in support of the present and future teaching and research needs of the University of Oxford, and of the national and international scholarly community. In providing services to the Library's readers we aim to be as responsive to your needs as our resources permit.

The statements which follow list the services which we intend to provide, and the undertakings we make towards providing them. We welcome any comments and suggestions which may help us to improve these services.

---

1. Admission, induction and training

1.1. We shall inform you, upon admission, of the rules of the Library and our service standards. (If you are a student new to the University, this may be done through your college or department at the start of your course.)

1.2. We shall give you upon admission a printed guide to the library or libraries which you have indicated you will use. The guide will contain information about contacting the library, its location, its hours of opening, its admission policy, its staff, its catalogues, how to obtain material, the photocopying services, and its facilities for disabled readers.

1.3. We shall maintain our basic guides for readers online as well as in printed form.

1.4. We shall endeavour always to have our full range of printed guides available.

1.5. We shall review our online and printed guides at least annually to ensure currency.

1.6. We shall provide basic instruction on the use of information sources within the Library, within the context of the University's overall provision of training in information skills.

2. Access and facilities

2.1. We shall be open during all the published opening times. If the published opening hours of the Library or any part of it are permanently or temporarily altered, other than by emergency, we shall give adequate advance notice.

2.2. We shall publicise changes in opening hours as widely as possible, including in the Oxford University Gazette, in our online information sources and on noticeboards in the Library.

2.3. All the seats in the Library will normally be available during opening hours. However, temporary closure of reading rooms, the occasions when reading rooms are full, and in some circumstances the special requirements of individual reading rooms, mean that possession of a University or Bodleian Reader's Card does not guarantee a seat in any reading room.

2.4. Library notices will be displayed prominently at the entrance to each building and/or in reading rooms. Signs and notices will be checked for currency and revised as necessary at least twice a year.

2.5. All reading rooms will display a reading room plan, and where appropriate a plan of other areas.

2.6. The services in each reading room, and the times during which they will be available (and where appropriate, the restrictions which apply), will be clearly displayed in the reading room. In particular, details of opening hours, the stack service (where applicable) and photocopying facilities will be displayed.

2.7. On working days, the full range of our services will normally be available from opening time until 17:00 (or published closing time if earlier), Monday to Friday, except during lunch periods as advertised. Restricted services, details of which will be displayed in reading rooms, will be available at other times.

2.8. The Systems and Electronic Resources Service undertakes to ensure that OLIS, the University's online library catalogue, will normally be available at all times. The Library also undertakes that its own databases will normally be available at all times.

2.9. You should note that in order to ensure the orderly closing of the Library each day, certain reading room facilities and services outlined above may cease up to thirty minutes before closing time. Details will be posted in each reading room.

2.10. We undertake to consult regularly with the University Committee for Disabled People to provide, review and where possible improve our facilities for the disabled.

3. Services

Reading room services

3.1.1. The hours at which individual service points are staffed will be posted locally in each reading room.

3.1.2. We shall endeavour to reshelve unreserved reading room material within a working day. Where conditions in a reading room make more rapid reshelving desirable, we shall undertake to do so and display the undertaking in the reading room.

3.1.3. Those libraries in the Bodleian group which have closed-access stacks and a relatively small proportion of material on open access will check the accuracy of the arrangement of material on open shelves annually. Where the material in a library is predominantly on open access, we shall check the accuracy of the arrangement of core reference material annually.

3.1.4. If you request an item which cannot be located after the next daily reshelving of material, we shall search for it at the earliest opportunity, and in any case within one working day.

3.1.5. We shall endeavour to keep all reading room equipment in working order and to inspect it regularly. If a piece of equipment fails, we shall seek to repair it as soon as possible and shall keep readers informed of progress on the repair.

3.1.6. We shall endeavour to ensure that consumables for computer equipment are always available during the working day.

3.1.7 When material is sent for binding we shall endeavour to return it to use within thirty days. If you urgently require for consultation an open-shelf item which is being bound, we shall either retrieve it for you or endeavour to make another copy available to you.

3.1.8. We shall despatch Interlibrary Loan requests from the Library within two working days of submission and shall notify you within two working days of receipt.

Stack service

3.2.1. Each reading room will display details of how long material ordered from closed stacks is expected to take to arrive. This will depend on the place of ordering, the location of the material and the reading room to which it is ordered.

3.2.2. If you have ordered a book which is restricted or cannot be found you will be informed as soon as possible, and not later than the normal delivery times. We shall advise you of further or alternative arrangements which can be made.

3.2.3. Within limits set by individual reading rooms, material will be kept at reserves for a specified number of days after its arrival or after its last consultation, after which we shall send it back to the stack. The period and relevant conditions will be displayed in the reading room.

3.2.4. Some reading rooms are able to accept stack orders by telephone for some categories of readers. The terms and conditions will be displayed in the relevant reading rooms.

3.2.5. If you request material which is in use elsewhere in the Library, we shall retrieve it for you or direct you to the place where you may consult it.

Lending

3.3.1. Where a library in the Bodleian group of libraries issues items to readers for use outside the library, we shall make clear to you the service hours during which items may be borrowed from the library.

3.3.2. Where the issuing of material depends upon a staff presence at a service point within a library, the library will undertake to have staff present at the service point (or available on request) during service hours, and will make clear to you how long you will have to wait for service if you should find that the staff have been called away for any reason.

3.3.3. If you ask for the recall of an item which has been lent to another reader, and the library allows this, then when the item has become available the library will notify you within a specified time.

Photocopying

3.4.1. We shall make available a photocopying service in or from each library building, subject to copyright regulations and conservation requirements.

3.4.2. We shall monitor the use of self-service photocopying machines at regular intervals and endeavour to adjust facilities in line with demand.

3.4.3. Where a staff-mediated photocopy service is available, photocopy orders placed on Library premises will normally be completed and despatched within one working day.

Photographic services

3.5.1. Where the Library provides a photographic service, we shall respond to requests for photographic services within ten working days. (You should bear in mind that further exchanges of correspondence may be necessary before an order can be confirmed.)

3.5.2. If more than ten days is likely to elapse between confirmation of order and the issuing of an invoice, we shall tell you when you may expect an invoice.

3.5.3. Imaging Services will endeavour to inform you, when issuing the invoice, how long an order will take to be completed once payment has been received. If this estimate is no longer valid when payment has been received, we shall provide a fresh estimate then.

4. Acquisitions

4.1. Suggestions for acquisitions are welcomed and we shall respond to them within ten working days. Suggestions may be made in a variety of ways. All parts of the Library accept suggestions in person, in writing or by telephone. Some parts of the Library also have suggestions books or forms.

4.2. We undertake to acquire any book on a reading list issued for a course by a tutor or department, and made available to the Library, if it is in print and falls within the scope of our collection development policy.

5. Getting in touch with the Library

5.1. If you write to one of the Library's contact addresses by mail, fax or electronic mail, we shall respond as soon as possible but in all cases within ten working days of receipt of the communication.

5.2. If you telephone us using one of the contact numbers, the call will be answered in person or you will be connected to an answering service on which you may leave a message. The answering service will be checked daily, and we shall respond as soon as possible but in all cases within ten working days of receipt of the communication.

5.3. A senior member of the Library staff will respond to written complaints within five working days of receipt.

6. Users' responsibilities

We can fulfil our commitments to you, our users, effectively only if you help us by using our services as they are intended to be used. Some specific examples of how you can help us to help you are given below.

6.1. We expect you to obey the rules and regulations of the Library.

6.2. We expect you to treat other users and staff courteously.

6.3. You should always have your University or Bodleian Libraries Reader's Card with you on entry to the Library and throughout each visit to the Library.

6.4. You should correctly complete any forms relating to the use of the Library; for example, stack order forms.

6.5. You have responsibility for all items issued to you, and should treat Library materials and equipment with care.

6.6. We encourage you to avail yourself of training sessions and documentation offered by the Library and the University.

6.7. If you are a member of the University, we shall be better able to meet your needs if you make appropriate use of all the libraries available to you. While the Bodleian group forms by far the largest component of the University's many libraries, our purpose is to complement and supplement, rather than to duplicate, the services provided by those other libraries.

7. Communication between readers and the Library

We aim to be as responsive to your needs as our resources permit, and to be efficient and courteous in all we do to meet those needs. We try to establish our users' needs in a variety of formal and informal ways, including:

• direct contact in reading rooms
• analysis of correspondence
• surveys
• consultation in formal meetings with students and academic staff

We recognise that our disabled readers may have special needs which our buildings cannot always accommodate. We shall always do our best to meet those needs, and welcome suggestions for improvements.

You may contact the Library by mail, electronic mail, telephone or fax. The Library's contact addresses for each of its public departments are given elsewhere on this website.

If you encounter problems which have not been satisfactorily resolved in the immediate area in which they arose, you should address any complaint in a dependent library to the Librarian there. In the Central Bodleian any member of reading room staff will advise you who is the most appropriate senior member of staff to whom to direct any complaint.

If, after making a complaint, you feel that your concerns have not been addressed satisfactorily, you should write to Bodley's Librarian.

---

Definitions

In this document we sometimes use the words and phrases "a working day", "normally", and "we shall endeavour...". To avoid misunderstandings, we state below what we intend these to mean:

• a working day is Monday-Friday when the Library is open, from the opening time of the Library until 5 p.m. The two public holidays in May are not counted as working days.
• normally, when referring to commitments we make, means that we hope to meet that commitment at least 90% of the time.
• Where we say we shall endeavour to do something, it means that we expect to be able to do it at least 80% of the time.