Senate House Library occupies the fourth to seventh floor of Senate House in Russel Square (between UCL and Birkbeck). The Library is open to all staff and students of the colleges within the University of London.

We have paid for all Goldsmiths students to have full-access, this means that once you have joined you can borrow books and access their e-resources from home. It also means that you have a great place to go and study if you don’t fancy coming to New Cross. But be sure to check their opening times before you travel.

To become a member of the Senate House Library, you just need to go there with your valid Goldsmiths ID card and register, you can even pre-register on-line to make it quicker. Though our libraries are not officially linked (you cannot return their books to us or vice-versa) this does mean the number of books you can borrow in total is increased. For example as an undergraduate you can borrow 10 books from Goldsmiths and an additional 8 books from Senate House.

The library holds around three million volumes, including 120,000 volumes printed before 1851. Along with a subscription to over 5,200 Journals, other resources include the Goldsmiths’ (not us) Library of Economic Literature,  and the Palaeography room’s collection of western European manuscripts. The library also holds over 170,000 theses by graduate students. You can check their catalogue from home to make sure they have what you need.  If there is a book that Goldsmiths does not stock and nor does Senate House then we can try and get it for you through an Inter-Library Loan.

Please remember that you will need to pay any late fines you owe to Senate House Library before you can graduate from Goldsmiths (you cannot settle these fines through Goldsmiths).