The Library’s print book collection is located on the ground, first and second floors. All books are listed on the Library’s Catalogue. The Library also provides access to over 5,000 e-books. When you search the Library’s catalogue if the book is available electronically you will be directed to the e-book version.

Short Loan Collection

Books in the Short Loan Collection are copies of essential and recommended module texts as requested by academic staff. This collection is located on the ground floor in a glassed area to the right as you enter the Library. Books can be borrowed for 48 hours and 3 hours only.

Main Lending Collection

All other books are located in the Library's Main Lending Collection. This collection includes text books but also provides lots of titles which will allow you to read around a specific topic.
The collection is divided between the first and second floors. Main lending books can be borrowed for 1 week or 3 weeks. 1-week books will have a white tape on the spine.  Part-time students may borrow 3-week loan books for 4 weeks.

On the first floor you will find books relating to Business, Education and Humanities. Books relating to Engineering and Science are on the second floor.

The library's collections are classified according to the Dewey Decimal System, which is a hierarchical system which organises all knowledge into 10 broad areas, spanning a range from 000 to 999. The 10 areas are:

 000  Generalities - including computing
 100  Philosophy, Psychology
 200  Religion
 300  Social Sciences
 400  Language
 500  Natural Sciences and Mathematics
 600  Technology (Applied Sciences)
 700  The Arts
 800  Literature
 900  Geography, History

Engineering books, for example,  will be in the 600 section, Sociology books will be in the 300 section. To find out what specific Dewey numbers relate to your subject area, pick up a library bookmark displayed near the Information Desk.

E-Books

The library have the following e-book collections that are available for DCU staff and students. The book titles are also available via the library catalogue:-

ACLS Humanities E-Book
History, Art, Women’s Studies and other subject areas

Literature Online
Over 6,000 works of poetry, prose and drama

Oxford Reference Online
You will find a wealth of facts, figures, definitions, and translations from 175+ Oxford reference titles, many of which are in-depth, scholarly articles from titles in the acclaimed Oxford Companions series, plus all 20,000 quotations from the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations.

Oxford Scholarship Online - Psychology Collection
Oxford Scholarship Online provides access to 80 full text e-books in the areas of cognitive psychology, cognitive neuroscience, and cognitive development. It features all titles from the renowned Oxford Psychology Series. Full title list here.

Oxford Scholarship Online - Public Health & Epidemiology Collection
Oxford Scholarship Online provides access to 102 full text e-books in the area of public health & epidemiology which discuss the development and assessment of public health issues that affect a diverse range of populations world wide. Full title list here.

Palgrave Connect - Language and Linguistics Collection
Provides access to 22 e-books and spans a range of subject areas including Applied Linguistics, Sociolinguistics and Discourse Studies, Language and Globalization, and Pragmatics

Palgrave Connect - Social and Cultural Studies Collection
Provides access to 100 e-books and spans a large range of subject areas including sociology, social policy, social work, criminology, psychology, cultural studies, media studies, education and gender studies.

PsycBooks
PsycBooks is the APA's full text e-book collection in the area of psychology. It provides access to 778 books published by APA, including 100 out-of-print books from 1950–2002, 1,027 classic resources in psychology and exclusive electronic release of the APA/Oxford University Press Encyclopedia of Psychology.

RSC eBook Collection
Over 900 chemical science e-books published by the Royal Society of Chemistry (1968-2010)

Safari Books Online
Computer Science e-books. Listing of the individual titles (with direct links)

Selected free e-book sites via the Web

Corpus of Electronic Text (CELT)
The online resource for Irish History, Literature and Politics

Google Book Search
Google has joined forces with a number of Libraries and publishers to provide free access to books, if you don’t get the entire book, you might get to see a sample chapter or the table of contents.

The Online Books Page
Features links to over 30,000 free books on the web

Project Gutenberg
The Internet's oldest producer of free e-books

Universal Digital Library
Free digitized collection of over 1 million books and other material

Women’s Writers Online
Texts by pre-Victorian women writers (1400 to 1850)