A big Portsmouth welcome to all our international students!  Arriving in a new country can feel a little overwhelming at first, so we've put together a welcome video especially for you to help answer some of your questions.  

Our staff are all really friendly and looking forward to meeting you.  Watch a video about all the ways we can help you achieve.

If you'd like to get ahead of your course with some basics on study, try reading our brief guides on academic reading, information literacy, and AI literacy.

If you have any difficulties with your sight or reading print, please let your Faculty Librarian know as soon as possible - you can find their contact details on your subject page.  There are lots of ways we can help but we need to know what would be useful to you.   

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International Students' Welcome to the Library

The University Library is a busy and lively building which reflects the multicultural nature of the university
and Portsmouth as a whole.

The University Library is a busy and lively building which reflects the multicultural nature of the University and Portsmouth as a whole. You need three important things to use the library.  Firstly, your student card.  It lets you in and out of the building, carries your library number and is used for issuing books.  The other things you will need are your username and password, which allow you to log onto our computers on campus and use many of our eresources off campus as well.

The library is an essential source of information for staff and students. We hold an extensive range of books and other printed materials, and our online holdings of electronic resources, including ebooks, ejournals and specialist databases are more expansive still! You can use your mobile phone or our touchscreen information kiosks to find books and look up all manner of other useful information about what is happening on campus. 

Use the library website to find links to a large number of respected electronic sources of academic information. By searching the Discovery Service, you can quickly find useful, high quality academic journal articles on any subject. The subject pages on the Library website offer almost everything you need for your studies in one place. Many of our resources are available from anywhere over the internet, and during your first term, you will learn how to access them. Setting up the VPN makes accessing electronic library resources from off campus even easier. 

The Library is open 24/7 during term time, our electronic resources are available around the clock, and all our borrowing and return services are self-service so you can study where and when suits you best.  You can borrow laptops from the lockers on the ground floor to use in the Library and book group study rooms up to two weeks in advance, where you can work in groups and practice presentations. You can also bring in your own laptop or mobile devices, plug into our power sockets and connect to the fast and secure university wireless network.  You can even connect your laptop or tablet to a large curved desktop monitor and work from your mobile device while enjoying all the comforts of using a desktop computer.

British universities expect students to be able to find, evaluate, and use information from a variety of sources. The lectures and seminars that lecturers give are often just the starting point for an assignment. Students then add their own research. The library is here to help you do this. Check if there are online reading lists for your units and learn to use the Discovery Service and other specialist services to locate good articles, books and statistics. Check our Referencing@Portsmouth tool to ensure you are referencing material correctly in your work.  You can borrow and return books and other materials using the self-service kiosks. The library catalogue shows you where to find books within the library. If you need any help, please ask a friendly member of staff. You can also request books be picked off the shelves by library staff and moved to the collection point near the café using our Click & Collect service for added convenience.

If you need help with anything from finding a book to research for your thesis, pop into the Library Skills Drop-in office off the atrium, or click the chat button on the library website 24/7, and chat to a librarian. We can help you find information for assignments more quickly and easily, advise on whether particular information sources you have found are likely to be considered reliable academic sources, and help you with referencing. You can also get instant answers wherever you are using our online chat service or telephone 24/7 or email us if your enquiry is less urgent.  Click the blue “Chat to us 24/7” button on the right side of the Library website to chat with a librarian whenever you need help or advice.

Last but not least, if you have any difficulties using the Library and its resources for any reason, including if you have a disability, please let us know in confidence by email, online chat through the library website or in person and we can show you the range of additional support services we can offer. We look forward to seeing you soon!