The McGill Libraries have the largest collection in Quebec and are one of Canada’s most important academic libraries with access to 6 million monographs and 80,000 online journals and databases collected to support all disciplines represented at McGill.
Library catalogue
The Libraries provide access to a wide range of primary and secondary resources. Its extensive holdings of electronic and print collections are available in most disciplinary areas and can be found by searching the Sofia Discovery Tool.
Reference materials
Bookmark the Reference Materials page for links to commonly used reference material such as dictionaries, directories, guidebooks, and much more.
E-books
When you search for books in the Sofia Discovery Tool, the electronic versions appear in the search results on the left hand side of the screen just below the Books header.
- To find individual e-book titles, search in the Sofia Discovery Tool form and under Narrow your search limit Format to eBook.
- Our E-books page has additional information about McGill Libraries' ebook subscriptions.
E-journals
If you are looking for a specific journal, you can use WorldCat Discovery to search for the journal by title. You may use also the Library’s E-journal title search or A-Z journal list.
Databases
If you are looking for a specialized database, you can use WorldCat Discovery to search for that database by name or use the Library’s Databases A-Z list.
Off-campus access to resources is handled two ways, EZProxy will prompt you for a McGill username and password, if you connect to the resource from any Library webpage. Configuring the VPN (virtual private network) client and running a VPN session allows you to connect to any Library resource from any link.
Specialist resources
Rare books & archives
The Rare Books and Special Collections Library (RBSC) has significant holdings in the humanities and social sciences and in particular art and architecture, Canadiana, history, literature, the history of ideas (philosophy and religion), travel and exploration, the history of the book as well as the rare scientific book collections of the Blackader-Lauterman, the Blacker-Wood, Islamic Studies and Macdonald Campus libraries. RBSC also provides services for McGill University Archives from their 4th floor location in the McLennan Library building. The Libraries also have rare book and special collections in the Marvin Duchow Music Library, the Nahum Gelber Law Library and the Osler Library of the History of Medicine.
Explore the Libraries' many digital collections, texts, and virtual exhibitions.
Use our digitization services for your research needs.
The Libraries' web pages also contain links to Government information, Maps & geospatial data and Audio & video streaming resources.
The Libraries' subscription to specialized databases such as Films on Demand, Theatre in Video, ARTstor, Naxos Music Library, medici.tv, Counseling and Therapy in Video and Anatomy.TV allow you to view audio and visual material in your office, in class or anywhere else.
Theses & disserations
McGill theses are submitted to the Library’s open access repository eScholarship@McGill via the Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies Office.
- eScholarship@McGill contains the full text of a growing number of McGill theses.
- Proquest Dissertations and Theses includes full-text of over 100,000 dissertations and theses from 1997 onwards as well as citations and abstracts for many more.
- Open Access Theses and Dissertations: OATD contains over 2 million open access graduate theses and dissertations published around the world.
HathiTrust
The McGill Libraries are a member of HathiTrust, a partnership of academic & research institutions, offering a collection of millions of titles digitized from libraries around the world.
Centre for Research Libraries
The McGill Libraries are a member of the Center for Research Libraries (CRL). CRL’s five million newspapers, journals, books, pamphlets, dissertations, archives, and government publications from all world regions: Sub-Saharan Africa, Eastern Europe, Latin America, the Middle East, South Asia, Southeast Asia, North America, and Europe are available on loan in microformats and increasingly as digital materials.
Interlibrary loans (ILL) service
The Libraries' Interlibrary loan service will locate materials not owned by McGill but held by other libraries in North America. McGill graduate students and faculty members are entitled to borrow materials on a long-term basis from the CRL.
Purchase requests
The McGill Libraries will make every effort to acquire any additional material required to support teaching and learning. Please let your Liaison Librarian know about any gaps or complete the Suggest a purchase form.
