The Society's Library is the first port of call, if you are looking for information resources and information support. We provide you with high quality information resources and information services that are tailored to your preferred style of learning and working.

Whether you want to improve your daily practice, complete your CPD, begin academic study or conduct research, we provide the information resources to enable these.

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Our services

Enquiries

The library is your first port of call for questions about information resources. From book titles to article citations, the library provides an efficient service, helping you find the information you need.

Document delivery

You can now obtain any article, drug monograph or book chapter by ordering it from the library.

Costs
• £5 per item if we can deliver it ourselves
• £10 per item if we have to obtain it from another library

How long does it take?
Please allow 5-10 working days for items to be sent. When the librarian is away, the supply may take even longer.

To use this service, you need to fill out this form, sign it (for legal reasons we can’t process any unsigned forms) and either fax it or scan and email it to us.

We then check how much your order is going to cost and email you the result. If you are happy to proceed, please let us know and we’ll then do the document delivery.

Database/evidence based pharmacy – free searches

The library offers a free database search service to all Society members. 

Contact us with details of the topic you want to know more about and we will conduct a search and email the results back to you within five working days. Please see our protocol for full details.

You will receive a list of article references along with abstracts and information on whether the full text is available in the library as well as electronic copies of guidelines/ policy documents where possible and references to them where not.

If you would like to carry out your own searches we have four databases available.

Databases

The library has carefully selected four high quality databases on pharmacy and allied healthcare sciences. These include not only citations, but also full text materials, but also advanced search functions to allow you to find only the most relevant articles for your topic.

International Pharmaceutical Abstracts

Focused on pharmacy in all its forms, this is your first port of call for finding citations and full text articles on pharmacy. It is produced by the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists, indexes 750 titles in pharmacy and medicine from around the world, and includes all US state pharmacy journals. It includes journals articles and all conference papers presented at ASHP's major meetings, covers all aspects of pharmacy and is fully searchable.

Medline

If you are interested in any aspect of medicine, this is the database that will enable you to find citations and articles on that topic.

This full text version of Pubmed includes bibliographic information for over 80,000 biomedical and health science serials. The database is updated weekly with more than 520,000+ records added annually.

It has highly advanced search functions allowing you to be extremely specific about the topic you are interested in and what kind of information you want.

Cinahl

If you are researching treatments and interventions in healthcare, this is the resource for you.

Cinahl is the authoritative source of information for the professional literature of nursing, 17 allied health disciplines, biomedicine, and healthcare. It provides references to books, book chapters, pamphlets, audiovisual items, dissertations, educational software, selected conference proceedings, standards of professional practice, nurse practice acts, critical paths, and research instruments.

Biomedical Reference Collection Corporate Edition

This resource is particularly useful for the access it provides to fulltext journals and therefore always worth checking out.

It covers disciplines from biomedicine and health sciences to the health care system and pre-clinical sciences, providing access to 1,040 fulltext journal titles.

Electronic Books

Having access to electronic books allows you to study and research from the comfort of your desk. The library currently provides access to fifteen central texts, a medical dictionary and calculator.

E-guidelines

As a special offer to members, the library has negotiated free access to the e-guidelines journal for members. An invaluable way for keeping up-to-date on guidelines and the issues surrounding them, e-guidelines is a member benefit.

Information search consultation

If you feel stuck trying to find information, we offer a free consultation service to members. A trained, professional librarian, will explore your information needs with you in detail, develop a search strategy, analyse which resources are most likely to help you find the information you need and support you in accessing them.

Information skills training

The library is developing resources to support your information searching. From factsheets, through advice given by telephone to webinars, you can access information skills training in whatever form suits you.

Reference library

Besides the extensive electronic resources, the library also holds printed works in the reference library in Lambeth. You can find out which ones by searching the catalogue.

This consists of  a current clinical collection relating to pharmacy – its practice, research, science and history. There is a small selection of current journal titles in pharmacy and medicine, and a larger collection of journal titles that are no longer added to.

The library holds the full range of Pharmaceutical Press publications, including Martindale: the complete drug reference, Stockley's drug interactions, British National Formulary and The Pharmaceutical Journal, plus all of the textbooks published by the Pharmaceutical Press.

A key collection within the library is the holdings of pharmacopoeias, proprietary texts and formularies from around the world. Some of the texts in this collection date back several decades.

Self-service copying

You can photocopy in the library (within the limits of UK copyright legislation). The costs for copying are: