The Library Replies

• From the Virtual Campus, clicking on the Library icon.
• From biblioteca.uoc.edu
• When you are inside a classroom, click on the Learning resources section and you will access the Library's resources for your course.

The UOC Library was created to operate completely online and to help you overcome the challenges you face, adapting to you and your learning needs. You can access it 24 hours a day, 365 days a year from any device.

If this is your first time using the UOC Library, find out how to make the most of the resources and services on offer. Welcome!

As a member of the UOC you have thousands of books, articles, journals, videos and databases at your fingertips. The UOC Library houses a massive collection of resources that have been handpicked for their quality and alignment with the University's areas of study.

You can use the search engine to quickly find what you need or browse the Library resources by area of study.

The Library provides personalized information for your learning, including tips and tools for carrying out activities and final projects.

Library guides enable you to research more deeply into many subjects, with content selected by our team of librarians.

You can access resources such as a 360° atlas of the human body, a virtual art gallery with images from the best museums, Pulitzer Prize-winners, BBC documentaries, theatre performances and concerts, videos in 3D format, or newspapers such as The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal or the Financial Times.

You can use the Library's search engine to continue to consult open-access content. 

If you would like to have access to a broader selection of resources from the Library's collection, read about the benefits of becoming a member of Alumni Premium.

As the card accredits you as a university student, you can access other centres that the UOC has agreements with and take items out on loan – this includes most Catalan university libraries.

You can benefit from the discounts and advantages offered by organizations and companies to university students, such as entry to museums.

Access to the website and search engine will be open to everyone. However, some subscription services and resources will only be available to members of the UOC community (depending on their user profile).

If you're looking for a book from among the Library's digital contents and can't find it, you can request it in print through the Library's search engine.

This service is only available in Spain and Andorra.

Below is a step-by-step explanation on how to borrow a book.

Sending a book on loan to a home address through the UOC is restricted to Spain and Andorra.

If there is a UOC centre in your region, the Library will not pay the cost of home delivery. If you would like us to send the book to your home address anyway, please check the indicative fees.

You must always bear the cost of returning books by courier, which will be subject to the fees charged by the postal service or your chosen courier.

Returned books undergo a 48-hour quarantine period in areas set up specifically for this purpose. As a result, when you reserve a book it may come up as "In quarantine".

All staff coming into contact with these documents are obliged to follow the protocols set up by the UOC for handling books.

If you cannot collect the document in person at the chosen UOC centre, you must authorize a person in writing to collect the book. However, you will still be the person ultimately responsible for the document.

You will receive a reminder at your UOC email address before the loan due date. If you're late returning a title, the service will be temporarily suspended by one calendar day per book, per day of delay.

If you lose a book, damage it or fail to return it, you must replace it and inform the Library team as soon as possible.

For more details, see the loan service regulations.

Any digital document related to teaching, learning and research at the UOC that is not in the Library's collection or in those of other university libraries in Catalonia that offer consortium loans (PUC).

Delivery times vary depending on document type and availability, as well as where the document comes from and the supplying institution’s study period. Our team is committed to doing everything that may be necessary to send you the document as quickly as possible.

The service is free for members of the UOC community. For more information, view the table of fees currently applicable at other centres.

For more information, view the table of current fees:

In any language. However, bear in mind that most scientific and academic publications are written or indexed in English. Consequently, you may retrieve many more results if you perform the search in English.

You also have the Language filter to delimit your results.

The first time you open the search engine, the interface will appear in Catalan. If you'd like to change it, click on the Menú option in the upper right-hand corner (or your name if you're already logged in) and then go to Mostrar idioma: Català (Show language: Catalan). Choose the language of your choice in the pop-up window.

You can also set your preferred default language by going to El meu compte (My account) / Dades personals (Personal details) / Idioma per defecte de la interfície (Default interface language). You can choose between Catalan, Spanish and English. The search engine will immediately switch to whatever language you pick.

The databases you can consult from the Virtual Library are collections of electronic documents and texts that have been indexed. There are two kinds of database available:

• Bibliographic databases: they provide basic information about the document (author, title, edition, date of publication, abstracts or reviews), but they do not offer access to the original text. 
• Full-text databases

The Library subscribes to databases that allow users to consult journals, ebooks, conference proceedings, etc.

Have you found an interesting document in Google Scholar and you want to know whether the UOC Library has the full text?

No need to enter the Library website. With this option, you can see it directly:

1. Log in to Google Scholar and go to the Settings section.
2. Select the option called Library links and locate the UOC in the search box: Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (UOC) - Full Text Biblioteca UOC.
3. Save the settings.
4. From now on, when a document is available in the UOC Library, a new link will appear to the right of the results. If you click on the link, you will be able to reach the document through our system.

As a first step, try deleting the cookies from your browser.

How to delete cookies. If the problem persists, contact us at The Library Replies.
 

We will ask you to provide the following information:

• Name of the resource that you can't access.
   
• The path you have followed to access the resource. For example, did you try to access through the online classroom or from the Library's website?
   
• The browser you are using.
   
• A full screenshot with the error that appears when you try to access the resource (to do this, press the print screen key on the keyboard and then open a Word document and use the option Edit > Paste.
   
• If applicable, the error message given by the system.
   
• If applicable, the anti-virus programme you use.

Sometimes when trying to access the UOC's digital resources, a message might appear warning you that a website cannot be trusted or that the connection is not secure, which therefore blocks you from accessing the page.

You have to approve non-secure connections if you want to access the resource.

Here's how to do it on Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox or Internet Explorer.

Google Chrome:

Go to “Advanced settings”, which will open up more information.

Click on “Proceed to access site URL (unsafe)”.

Mozilla Firefox:

Go to “Advanced”. 

Click on “Add Exception...”.

Click on “Confirm Security Exception”.

Internet Explorer:

Click on “Continue to this website (not recommended)”.

All the contents you need can be found in a single search box. Follow the steps below to get the most out of the search engine.

It is the institutional portal that compiles, disseminates and preserves the UOC community's open-access digital publications.

It helps disseminate the University's activity around the world, increasing visibility and impact.

It was created in 2010 to position the UOC as a global university committed to the open access movement.

The UOC’s institutional repository is the portal for collecting, disseminating and preserving the open-access digital publications produced by members of the UOC as part of their research, teaching and management work.

You can deposit the file yourself in the portal. All you have to do is follow these simple steps for your particular profile.

• Guide to Depositing Teaching Materials in O2, the UOC's Institutional Repository
   
• Guide for Depositing Final Bachelor’s Degree Projects, Final Master's Degree Projects and Practicums in O2, the UOC's Institutional Repository

• Guide to Depositing Research in O2, the UOC's Institutional Repository

​​When you enter a publication in the UOC's research assessment tool, GIR, click on the Publish in the Repository button to automatically fill in the form for depositing documents in the UOC's O2 institutional repository. Then upload the document (preferably, the pre-print version) and check the data entered.

A user who accesses from the portal or directly from the address http://openaccess.uoc.edu/, gains access as an external user, and only has access to unrestricted navigation in the repository collection, and once one registers as a user of the repository (external users UOC), they will have access to the service My repository that will only allow them to subscribe to receive alerts by e-mail when new documents are published in the collections to which they are subscribed.

If you enter from the campus of the UOC, once logged in via a campus session, you will have access to the entire repository collection and the option of publishing a document in the repository, as well as to all the added value services offered to you by the repository: exploitation RefWorks, My repository with advanced options such as consulting the status of your remittances, reinitiate remittance of a document that hasn’t finished, etc.

You can include files in whatever format you prefer: applications, video, audio, etc.

However, we recommend that you use open formats to ensure the preservation of materials in the long term because they are based on open standards, free of legal and economic use restrictions.

In this regard for text documents we recommend the use of pdf format, not only because almost everyone can open PDF documents without having to buy any software, but also because Internet search engines retrieve perfectly the text of the documents in this format.

Yes, as long as you produced the document in the framework of your activity at the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (Open University of Catalonia, UOC), and as long as this is permitted by the contract you signed with the publisher of the scientific journal. To find out what is permitted or not by the publisher, if you don’t have a copy of the signed contract, you can consult it through the international publishers’ database SHERPA-ROMEO and/or the national publishers’ database DULCINEA.

No, it is not possible for you to modify the documents already published in the repository. 

Yes. Creative Commons licences are based on the idea of authors' rights. Recognizing the authorship of a work is essential. Using a Creative Commons licence for your final project simply means you're letting people who might want to use it do certain things with it.

Once you've chosen which Creative Commons licence you want to use, add it to the bottom of the front page of your work.

For example, if you choose the most restrictive Creative Commons licence, add the licence's logo, the copyright symbol, your name and surname, the year of publication and the legal text for the licence.

Copyright is how authors legally protect their (artistic or literary) intellectual property. In other words, it guarantees the recognition of authors' intellectual property over their work. In this way, copyright protects authors' exclusive right to commercialize, disseminate, reproduce and publish, as well as other associated rights.

Creative Commons licences allow authors to authorize certain uses of their work. Authors exercise the exclusive right conferred upon them by law to decide on how their work may be used and distributed. For instance, they may allow their work to be reproduced provided their authorship is recognized, or establish restrictions on its commercial use and the possibility of producing derived works.

There are six main types of Creative Commons licences. All of them involve author attribution (BY), and the more symbols they have, the fewer uses they allow. 

• Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDervis 
• Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 
• Attribution-NonCommercial 
• Attribution-ShareAlike 
• Attribution-NoDerivs 
• Attribution

Yes. Creative Commons licences are based on the idea of authors' rights. Recognizing the authorship of a work is essential. Using a Creative Commons licence for your final project simply means you're letting people who might want to use it do certain things with it.