Welcome to the Gender and Sexuality Studies Guide - giving you information on library resources and services relating to gender and queer studies.
The Main Library holds the majority of books for Gender Studies. Most of the books in the Main Library are on the 2nd floor or in the HUB (High Use Book) Collection on the ground floor.
The most common shelfmarks for Gender Studies start with:
| H-HX | Social Sciences |
| HQ | Women's Studies |
Remember the Library has access to thousands of e-books which you can access via DiscoverEd.
The Library has a vast amount of online resources you can use for your learning and research which can be a bit overwhelming when you're first starting to use them. Our guide provides information to help you navigate all the online resources you'll need throughout your studies.
Resource Lists are online reading lists that can signpost you to key reading materials. Some of your courses may have a Resource List embedded in the Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) but you can also access them directly. Full details are available on the Resource Lists: Information for Students webpage.
Use DiscoverEd to find books, ebooks, journals, ejournals and more. Sign into your Library account using your University Login to manage your loans and requests.
Photograph of Frances Simson, Chrystal MacMillan and Frances Melville outside the House of Lords (Shelfmark: Phot.Ill.125(11)). Frances Simson was one of the first women to graduate with an M.A. from the University of Edinburgh. She pleaded for the rights of women in the House of Lords, and was later also awarded an honorary degree of LL.D. Image © The University of Edinburgh.
The Centre for Research Collections (CRC) is the main space for anyone using the University of Edinburgh's historic and special collections, including rare books and manuscripts, University of Edinburgh archives, personal and institutional archives, Lothian Health Services Archives, University of Edinburgh PhD theses, art collection, musical instrument collection and more.
The CRC is based on the 6th floor, Main Library.
The Library regularly arranges trials to new resources. Publishers are usually willing to provide trial access to allow us to use and evaluate a resource before making a decision about purchase.
See a full list of subjects and their recommended databases at:
We'd love to hear any suggestions you have for this or any of our other EDI focused content. If you know of books, articles, videos or podcasts you think we should add to our guides, let us know! You can contribute to our Padlet here.
If you'd like to speak to us directly about anything mentioned in this toolkit or you'd like to be involved in helping us review or test future resources before they go live, you can find the Academic Support Librarian for your subject area via the links on this page:
Alternatively you can email our team using the following link which will direct your call to our Unidesk mailbox. One of our colleagues from the EDI working group will pick up the call from there and get back to you:
