Services for Affiliates
Who does this apply to?
Royal College of Surgeons of England and Faculty of Dental Surgery: Affiliates.
Please note that you will cease to be eligible for Affiliate status as soon as you gain your MRCS, MFDS, MJDF or equivalent qualification. Consequently, your membership of the Library will also cease until you pay your first subscription as a member of the College or Faculty.
The Royal College of Surgeons’ Library in Lincoln’s Inn Fields closed to all visitors in May 2017 as part of a major refurbishment project due to be complete in 2021. During the redevelopment period, we will be working with partner institutions to provide managed access to our collections for study and research. Find more information on changes to Library Services.
Online resources
Affiliates can access the Library’s collection of online journals and e-books, as well as Acland’s Video Atlas of Human Anatomy and Visible Body Human Anatomy Atlas (which is also available as a mobile app), using their College login.
Please note that student (undergraduate) affiliates only have access to the Annals of the Royal College of Surgeons of England, the Bulletin of the Royal College of Surgeons of England and the Faculty Dental Journal.
You can also search across thousands of journals using Ovid Medline and EMBASE, setting up search alerts to email you the latest research in your area of interest. Where possible, there are links between search results and the full text of journal articles.
Document delivery
If the Library does not subscribe to a given journal, affiliates can request articles for a fee via the Document Delivery service.
Literature searches
Our Information Specialists can help you find the literature you need for research, CPD or clinical practice. Literature searches are carried out on Medline and Embase for you by the team.
Booking an appointment
Affiliates can book a 1-to-1 appointment with a member of the Library team for advice on using our resources and services and with building and running your own literature searches. If you would like to book an appointment, please email us at library@rcseng.ac.uk.
If you are visiting the College, drop-in consultations are possible: either phone us at 020 7868 6555 or ask staff at the reception desk to contact us.
Appointments can be made for 9 am to 4.30 pm, Monday to Friday.
Please be aware that all on-site College activities may be affected by building work.
Borrowing books
The Library closed in May 2017 to allow collections to be moved offsite. Our arrangements with partner institutions allow Affiliates to make requests to borrow books currently stored offsite. Please see Using the RCS Library collections during the redevelopment for more information and contact us at library@rcseng.ac.uk if you have a question.
Books for exam preparation
The collection of books for exam preparation will remain onsite. Affiliates are able to borrow these books from the Nuffield Lounge. Please contact us at library@rcseng.ac.uk or 020 7869 6555 to arrange this.
Books and other material available electronically
There are over 1000 textbooks and reference manuals available via our subscription to ClinicalKey which allows book chapters to be saved as PDFs to be read later. Affiliates can access ClinicalKey using their College Login details and illustrated help on accessing the service can be found on Surgicat+.
Study space
We are working with Middle Temple Library to provide study space for Postgraduate Affiliates during the Lincoln’s Inn Fields redevelopment project.
If you would like to use the study space at Middle Temple Library, please email library@rcseng.ac.uk to arrange access before your visit. Find more information about this new service on our “Changes to Library Services” page.
Please be aware that there is no dedicated Library study/research space in the Lincoln’s Inn Fields building during the redevelopment period.