Explore: Finding books, journals and more

Explore is provided on a remote server which is not directly under UCL control. Check its status on this page, and see details of alternative sources to help you find what you need if it becomes unavailable.

Please note that, each weekend between 22:00 on Saturdays and 03:00 on Sundays, Explore's suppliers perform maintenance which can affect the service's functionality and availability. We apologise for any inconvenience this may cause you.

If for any reason Explore becomes unavailable, please try the following alternative sources of information:

Jisc Library Hub Discover is a tool for searching the holdings of major UK and Irish including UCL Library Services, and is a useful substitute for finding the location of library materials (please note that very latest holdings information will be uploaded soon). You can restrict any search to UCL only, by putting “held-by:ucl” at the beginning of any search. 
(see this example)

UCL's app, known as UCL Go, can also be used to find items in our libraries, and is available on mobile devices as well as on PC.

The self-service kiosks in our libraries will enable you to renew your loans and see your reservations and fines.

UCL's app, known as UCL Go, also offers these facilities, and is available on mobile devices as well as on PC.

You can access UCL's ejournals using BrowZine Web via our A-Z list of databases, though please note not all titles will be available in BrowZine.

For help with this service, and for further information, please see our e-journal FAQs

Google Scholar provides a means for accessing a wide range of articles from scholarly ejournals. You can see which ones UCL has access to using findit@UCL in Google Scholar.

A large number of general and subject-specific databases are available for finding journal articles and other forms of information.

To choose which database to search, consult our subject-based guides to resources.

Use Jisc Library Hub Discover to find electronic books available at UCL. Put “held-by:ucl” at the beginning of any search to restrict the search to UCL print and electronic holdings – electronic books are identified by an image of a computer screen next to UCL Library Services in the list of holding libraries:

Click on the UCL Library Services link and look for the link to external resource:

If you are not working on-site at UCL, we recommend accessing Library Hub Discover via a Desktop@UCL session so that you are recognised by e-book providers as coming from UCL. Library Hub Discover may not include our most recent purchases. Some of the e-books may not show you a link / only give you a link back to Explore – if this is the case, please contact the E-Resources Team for the link you need.

Consult individual collections which form part of Explore: