Overview
Hartley Library is the University of Southampton's biggest library and sits at the heart of the Highfield campus. Operating across five floors, there are over 520,000 physical items in our collection and 1,900 study spaces. We are open 24/7 during term-time and the Library continues to be a popular place for students to meet and study. We welcome all University staff, researchers, and our wider civic communities into the building throughout the year to study and learn.
We want to ensure our library services are modern and relevant and so we are working to ensure we create a more adaptable, inclusive, accessible, creative and sustainable space with a renewed and refreshed collection for our diverse communities.
As part of the ongoing development of our campuses we will be continuing to invest in our learning spaces, this includes plans to invest in Hartley Library.
Our Collections Development and Discovery Project (CD&D) concluded in March 2024. In consultation with University staff and students, we refreshed our print book collection, making it simpler to find books by moving to a single classification system (Library of Congress), and enhancing catalogue records to improve discovery. We moved 200,000 items to high-grade, offsite storage. These items can be recalled to the library if requested by our users. The library is also part of a national collection scheme designed to ensure that we retain items which are scarce.
With the Hartley Library Transformation Project, we are developing plans for a complete refurbishment of the building to address problems with an ageing infrastructure (heating, lighting, ventilation and toilet provision) and to deliver a greater number and variety of study spaces. We will be consulting with the University community through a number of channels as these plans progress.
All of this work supports the University Strategy as well as supporting the Civic University Agreement
National picture
We are a member of Research Libraries UK (RLUK) which is a consortium of research libraries in the UK and Ireland, The group aims to shape the research library agenda and contribute to the wider knowledge economy through innovative projects and services that add value and impact to the process of research.
Contact us
We welcome feedback from all library users about any of our development plans or current services. Please email libenqs@soton.ac.uk - we aim to respond within two working days.