Membership & borrowing
VU students & staff
All VU staff and students are automatically members of the VU library. Onshore members in Australia can borrow print books and other physical materials, as well as access a wide range of online resources.
Your student or staff card is your library card and can also be used for printing, and copying.
Offshore students & staff
If you study overseas you have access to a range of online resources, including e-books, eJournals, videos, newspapers and theses. Print books cannot be sent overseas (limit your search to "Items with full text online").
If you cannot find the item you are looking for, it may be acquired through our document delivery service (conditions apply).
Staff who teach students at a VU partner institution can access VU Library eResources. There may be some delay due to administrative processing of employment data. For further enquiries contact
External borrowers
External membership of the Library is available to:
CAVAL members
CAVAL is a borrowing program that allows staff and students of participating university libraries to borrow material from other participating libraries.
Universities Libraries of Australia and New Zealand (ULANZ) members
ULANZ is a borrowing scheme that allows students and staff of Australian and New Zealand universities to borrow in person from any other participating university library.
TAFE National Borrowing Scheme members
Information on the scheme and participating TAFE libraries by State is available at the Australian Library and Information Association website.
- Lifelong Memberships: the former VU employees, including all of those institutions which have amalgamated to form the University.
- VU alumni
- community
- other.
Terms and conditions
Your My Library username is the barcode on the External Borrower Card.
External Borrower membership offers:
- loans of printed books (some materials are only available for VU students and staff, e.g. Reserve Collection, Special Collections and some study material)
- DVDs/CDs
- use of print serials (journals) and reference (encyclopaedias, dictionaries) material onsite.
External Borrower membership does not offer access to:
- subscription-based online resources (e-books, databases)
- laptop borrowing
- document delivery service
- library PCs, printers or booking of study rooms
- wireless network unless external borrowers are current staff and students studying at another university.
Note: Current staff and students studying at another university can access eduroam network at VU.
Apply for external membership
You can apply for external membership at any VU Library service desk.
Please bring your photo ID to support your application.
Loans & returns
While an increasingly digital library, VU Library continues to provide hardcopy books to support teaching, learning and research, and it aims to ensure fair and equitable access to these books.
Standard loans
All VU students (TAFE, undergraduate and postgraduate) and all VU staff, have an unlimited number of loans. External borrowers can have a maximum of 10 loan items at any one time.
The standard loan periods are:
- VU TAFE and undergraduate students – 28 days
- VU staff, VU postgraduate students (PhD, Masters and Honours) – 84 days (12 weeks) or equivalent to a semester.
- External borrowers – 28 days, with a maximum of 10 loan items.
Restricted loans
Some items held by VU Library will be limited to shorter loan periods:
- Books in high demand – 14 days
- Reserve collection – two hours (within the Library only).
Returns
Items can be returned to any campus library during opening hours. Self-service machines for borrowing or returning your items are located within most campus libraries.
Outside of opening hours, items may also be returned to libraries which have external return chutes (St Albans and Werribee campus libraries).
You can also post items (all return postage costs are your responsibility) to the Library postal address. See address below.
It is important that Library items are returned on time to ensure all students and staff have equal access to resources.
If you are unable to return your books due to extenuating circumstances such as illness, please contact Library staff via LibraryChat, or phone .
Please note, once items become overdue, a temporary loan stop will be automatically placed on your account. This prevents renewal of current loans, placing holds, and loan of additional items. The loan stop will be removed upon return of any overdue items.
Holds
Standard loan books can be placed on hold by a VU Library member, so that you get to borrow it next. Holds can be placed on books that are:
- at another VU campus library
- currently out on loan.
Hold requests are self-service and cannot be placed over the telephone. To place a hold, log into My Library and place the hold through Library Search.
Items that can't be placed on hold
You cannot place a hold on any items that have a restricted loan period. This includes:
- reserve items
- special collection items
- equipment
- VU Sydney items.
Conditions
Some conditions apply to hold requests:
- VU staff and students can have 10 hold requests at any one time.
- External borrowers can have three hold requests at any one time.
- Items requested via the hold system will be reserved for five working days, after which they will be returned to the collection or go to the next person who has placed a hold on the item.
- If an item has other holds on it, the loan period will be reduced to two weeks and cannot be renewed. Check your MyLibrary record for due date.
Renewals
Standard loans will be automatically renewed two days before the due date unless:
- the item has been requested by someone else
- you have an overdue item which will interfere with automatic renewals
- your library privileges have been suspended for any other reason.
External borrowers can have up to three renewals.
VU Library will send you a courtesy email to let you know when an item has been automatically renewed, or if you've reached your maximum borrowing time. Please ensure that you return these items by the due date in the email.
Inter-library loan, Reserve, VU Sydney or equipment items will not be automatically renewed.
