Library Service Downtimes: Home

Library Service Downtimes

Below are details of planned service downtimes which may affect library services.

Floor 0 is currently closed to users due to building works. Read more here, or take a look at our FAQs.

Current Issues:

British Library System Outage - Services starting to resume

The British Library is currently experiencing a system outage which has affected all of their services although some are now resuming. . The  British Library Catalogue and Ethos are both unavailable. From 16 January 2024 the British Library have started to accept some document supply orders but the service is still not fully available.   

What users can do if they need documents:

You can still make interlending requests and we will try and source them from other locations or from the limited service the British Library is provided . There are only a few that we cannot source from elsewhere. However, requests may take a little longer than normal to be supplied. 

If you are interested in following what is happening at the BL and to be aware of services coming back online they have a temporary blog: https://blogs.bl.uk/living-knowledge/2023/11/cyber-incident-update.html 

British Library Ethos database unavailable

As a result of the recent cyber attack on the British Library, the Ethos theses database is still unavailable. Therefore, links to this database from Books+ (WCD and Library Search (EDS), will not work or will give error messages. There is no estimated fix date yet.

Advice to users:

Try the following as alternative routes:

1. Check the institutional digital repository of the institution where the thesis was submitted 

Searching the holding institution's digital repository the institution can normally be identified from the detail record. For example in books+​

2. Check Open Access Theses and Dissertations https://oatd.org

3. Check Proquest

https://www.proquest.com/pqdtglobal/dissertations/fromDatabasesLayer?accountid=10637 NB. Sometimes this will link through to an institutional repository and sometimes to Ethos. If it is Ethos the link will not work. 

Planned Service Downtimes:

There are currently no planned service downtimes.

Any Questions? 

If you have any questions about the above or are experiencing other issues with any of our services please contact us.