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There are three ways you can access the majority of the Heythrop Library's collections:
1 You can apply for membership of the Heythrop Library. Membership costs £60 per year and includes the facility to have books delivered to the London Jesuit Centre and to use the library reading room at the London Jesuit Centre as a place to work.
2 If you are a member of any university library in the UK, you can access the Heythrop Library through your university's inter-library loans (or documents) services. They will need to contact Senate House Library's ILL department (link see below).
3 You can join the University of London Senate House Library. Membership costs £210 per year and gives you access to University of London collections including the Heythrop Library (except the materials at the Heythrop Library reading room/Mount Street).
Heythrop Library is open to anyone with a serious interest in theology or philosophy and the related academic disciplines represented in the collection. We welcome enquiries about using the library’s collections and reading room at the London Jesuit Centre. The next two sections of this FAQ answer most membership questions, or download the most current Reader's Guide.
The Heythrop Library is part of a registered charity, and generous supporters play a vital role in helping to keep its doors open.
Please consider making a donation today and help us to continue inspiring generations of readers.
When you click on the donate link, please pick ‘Heythrop Library’ as a designation. If you would like to ‘Write us a comment’, please do.
We do, but only to the UK mainland, and it comes with some special procedures. Please read the following terms and conditions, before emailing us about it.
Version 1.1, February 2024.
The library also operates a postal service which delivers books to your registered UK home address. Readers must cover the cost of postage, both ways (please see https://www.royalmail.com/price-finderfor possible costs). Postal loans are not possible to locations outside the UK mainland (if you are unsure about this, please ask us).
1. Please email us that you would like to start using the Heythrop Library Postal service, and that you agree to the Terms& Conditions, as set out in this document.
2. We will raise an invoice of£50, which we ask you to pay promptly. Please be aware that we ask for an initial BACS transfer of £50; we will use this as credit for any postal loan costs.
Please be aware that any unused credit can be reimbursed if/when your library membership ends, or you state that you no longer wish to use our postal service.
3. Please let us know the answers to the following questions:
a. Is there a safeplace at your address? (in case no one is in at time of delivery)
b. Would you like the parcel to arrive in 24h or 48h? (We use 24h tracked as standard, but – of course –it will cost more of your credit).
c. Do you want us to give Royal Mail your email address, and/or mobile number; or both, or neither(if neither: we need to add our email address for notifications on delivery, when placing the online postage order).
4. You will need to return the books as if you had borrowed them in person, i.e. if the book has been requested by someone else, you will need to return it within the requested 7 days. Also, you are expected to return books before the given due date.
5. You can return any of our books in person, or by post (if the latter, please use tracked delivery).
If the book gets lost either on the way to you, or on the postal return to us, you will need to pay for the replacement costs:
a) If the book is still available, we will charge you the RRP at the time of you reporting it lost as the cost for the replacement.
b) If the book is irreplaceable, we charge a minimum of £50; the exact charge is dependent on the perceived value of the book.
Like with any book borrowed (whether in person or by postal service), the following might impact the speed by which you will receive the book. It can happen that:
a) another borrower may place a request on the book issued to you, at any time. This might mean the time you can borrow the book is very short (once a book has been recalled by another borrower, it should be returned within 7 days of the notification email being sent).
b) If you recall a book, it might take 7days or more to be returned to us, before we can then post it to you.
c) 24 hour tracked delivery cannot always be guaranteed, i.e. it might be delayed by the time we receive the book, and put it into the post box, or indeed the next collection time of the post box.
d) The book is in one of our offsite stores which have the normal delivery times before we can then post it to you (i.e. 3x a week, with cut-offs normally on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays: for delivery to us on Wednesdays, Fridays and Mondays).
Heythrop Library is open to anyone with a serious interest in theology or philosophy and the related academic disciplines represented in the collection. We welcome enquiries about using the library’s collections and reading room at the London Jesuit Centre. The next two sections of this FAQ answers most membership questions, or download the most current Reader's Guide (link below).