The Sydney Jones is open 24 hours a day during term time and provides hundreds of individual study spaces, as well small-group study rooms and break-out areas. It houses several million books and journal issues, as well as one of the most extensive suites of electronic resources in the UK. These enable the user to access an enormous range of material, including textbooks and articles.
We have access to a variety of subscription databases, such as Early English Books Online, Eighteenth-Century Collections Online, Literature Online and the Burney Collection of Newspapers.
In addition, the Special Collections and Archives department of the library houses:
- literary manuscripts, including papers by Seamus Heaney, Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes;
- The Science Fiction collection - the largest in Europe - which includes the libraries and archives of some of the major sf writers of the twentieth century including John Wyndham, Arthur C. Clarke and Brian W. Aldiss. Watch Neil Gaiman's introduction to the collection.
- rare and early printed books;
- medieval manuscripts;
- poetry archives from the Romantic period to the present day.
Library staff are highly qualified information professionals who can help users make the best use of the resources in their studies.
Back to: Department of English