Electronic books (e-books)

Explore is the gateway to UCL's library resources, and the first place to go to find and access e-books. On this page we guide you through finding e-books in Explore, and outline some other options if the e-book you want is not available.

We recommend that you use Explore, UCL Library Services' single search tool, to search for e-books.

Login to your account ensure full search results.

How do I search for e-books in Explore?

It's important that you sign in to Explore before you search as some resources require you to be logged in to Explore to include their search results.

Once logged in, you should not need to enter your UCL credentials again when you link through to e-books.

Senate House Library e-resources

Current UCL students and staff can access Senate House Library e-resources from home for free. To do this, you need to hold a current Senate House Library account, but you can register for one online. 

Then use the Senate House search tool to look for e-books:

Suggest an e-book for purchase

If you cannot find an e-book on Explore, you can make suggestions to purchase materials not currently available through UCL Library Services. 

Free e-book collections

An increasing number of free e-book collections are available. We try to include records for these e-books in Explore where we can, but it is sometimes worth searching the platforms directly.