The uOttawa Library now offers easy access to nearly 23.5 million resources from university libraries across the province.
In 2019, uOttawa implemented a new academic search tool called Omni as part of an innovative collaboration between 16 university libraries of the Ontario Council of University Libraries (OCUL). uOttawa students, staff and faculty can use Omni to seamlessly request physical resources from across all 16 partner institutions.
The uOttawa Library’s own physical collection includes over 2.4 million books.
“Through this collaboration we’re able to expand our collection and provide the uOttawa community with easy access to the extensive research collections available across all of our partner libraries,” says Liz Hayden, associate university librarian.
To request an item, users must log in to their library account and perform a search on the uOttawa + Omni Libraries web page. Omni searches across all partner institutions for that item and when it finds an available copy, users can request it, whether it is available at uOttawa or not. Omni will then automatically send it to uOttawa, at no charge to users.
The anticipated average delivery time is 7 to 10 business days, but our goal is to reduce this delivery time as COVID-19 restrictions are lifted.
RACER, the existing interlibrary loan network, is still available to borrow physical resources that are not available at any of the 16 Omni libraries, and for all electronic resource requests.
“OCUL has a long history of collaborating and sharing our resources,” says Talia Chung, University librarian and vice-provost (knowledge systems). “We are delighted to be part of this partnership, working together to enhance access to high-quality, academic research material for our users.”
For more information, visit the uOttawa Library website.