Library resources, services, events, exhibitions and special collections
| Sito: | Attività formative complementari |
| Corso: | BiblioCompass: a guide to bibliographic search and library services for Agricultural Sciences 2025-2026 |
| Libro: | Library resources, services, events, exhibitions and special collections |
| Stampato da: | Utente ospite |
| Data: | lunedì, 8 giugno 2026, 14:48 |
1. SBA Resources
The University library system offers a wide range of services:
Most of the resources are searchable through the University catalogue: Onesearch
1.1. What is Onesearch?
OneSearch is an essential tool for your searches. In fact, it is not a simple catalog of SBA libraries: it queries all the available resources at the same time and shows the results in a single list, in which you can further filter, then reduce, the displayed resources.
1.2. What allows you to search Onesearch?
In particular, Onesearch allows you to search among:
- physical collections owned by Unifi libraries (books, magazines)
- electronic collections to which libraries subscribe (electronic journals with full text articles, e-books, databases)
- the catalogs of the libraries of the Tuscan universities associated with Florence (SBART).
In addition to this, it gives you information about the availability for loan of the material and about the location to retrieve it yourself on the open shelf or to request it if placed in warehouses closed to the public.
Go to OneSearch
1.3. Your personal account on Onesearch
Logging in Onesearch allows you to get access to a series of additional services.
First of all, you can view your profile, for monitoring the status of loans and requests submitted to the library.
Moreover, you can access your favorites, a sort of personal "virtual shelf" where you can place titles of books, magazines, articles, databases for which you need quick access. You can arrange your favorites by applying labels for a thematic subdivision of the stored resources.
1.4. Additional features in OneSearch
More features on Onesearch
You can filter the results of your search thanks to appropriate facets:
Moreover, it is possible to export single results through the icons under their title:
You can use the first icon to create a QRCode which will bring you directly to the resource's details. The second one converts the resource's metadata into excel data. Icons from three to six allow you to send the reference to RMS, specific software used to create bibliographies and annotations. We will talk about these tools later on.
2. SBA services
SBA Services
Libraries offer numerous services to internal and external users of the University:
- consultation and loans of books;
- consultation of historical collections, ancient materials, degree theses;
- interlibrary loan and document delivery for supplying copies of works owned by other libraries;
- guidance and support in research through service presentations, personalized assistance, courses to users and the online service Ask a librarian
2.1. Consultation/Reading on-site
SBA services: Consultation/Reading on-site
To find books and journals available in the Library, both on paper and digital, you need to use OneSearch.
OneSearch informs you if what you are looking for is available online or owned by the library. In this case it indicates the location, that is the string of numbers and letters that represents the address of the document, the shelf where the volume is placed.
In a library volumes can be placed:
- open shelf, with free access to the public: you can go to the shelf, consult the document, leaf through it, take it for borrowing or just for reading and then leave it on the tables or trolleys: librarians will take care and put it back on shelf! Generally, books are placed by subject, according to a classification system by hierarchically organized topics (our libraries adopt the DDC - Dewey decimal classification), which serves both to identify the subject of the book and its location. This means that all the books dealing with the same topic are placed close together on the shelf. Journals are instead placed alphabetically or in numerical sequence.
- closed shelf/deposit, not accessible to the public: you can send a request through Onesearch and librarians will take it for you. The request lasts three days from the moment the librarians take the document from the warehouse. When the book has been picked up for you, you will be notified with an authomatic email to your institutional address by our system.
Reading on-site is generally allowed for the entire collection. Some restrictions may be applied to particular kinds of documents, such as ancient or rare books and degree theses.
2.2. Loan
Loan
A good part of the collection can be borrowed. Loans are generally allowed for books published after 1915, with some exceptions: journals, volumes in specialized reference rooms, dictionaries, encyclopedias cannot be borrowed.
All students can use the loan service of all University libraries, regardless of the School they are enrolled in. For the loan, you need your Student Card, which is used for identification and for reading the barcode, essential for registering the operation in our systems.
Duration of loans:
- Bachelor students, single cycle and single courses students: 30 days with up to two renewals (for a maximum duration of 3 months);
- Master's students: 60 days with up to one renewal (for a maximum duration of 4 months);
- PhD students, Research fellows, professors and researchers: 60 days with up to two renewals (for a maximum duration of six months).
Take a look at our Loan service rules in detail.
2.3. Renewal and reservation
Renewal and reservation
The renewal, or extension of the loan is automatic, provided that the loaned documents have not been reserved by other users and that the maximum loan period for each type of user has not been reached.
If the book you are looking for is already on loan from another user, you can reserve it, again through Onesearch. The reservation lasts three days starting from the day after the actual return date and not the expected one, which could also occur beyond the expected time. When the book you have booked has been returned, you will be notified with an automatic e-mail to your institutional address @stud.unifi.it.
The delay or failure to return the documents within the established terms will result in exclusion from the loan services for a period equal to the delay, automatically calculated by the management software.
2.4. Digital lending
Among the resources at your disposal there are also several e-books and e-journals, that can be downloaded and read for a limited time range on your devices. This service is called digital lending. Here is a list of the main platforms:
Media library online (Mlol)
It offers a wide collection of manuals, but also fiction and non-fiction books from the most important publishers. You can borrow up to two books per month for 14 days. There is also a free access catalogue of books freely accessible and downloadable without restrictions.
Pandoracampus
It is the online platform of the italian publisher il Mulino, that offers access to manuals of several publishers.
McGraw Hill
The American publisher offers access to 180 of its manuals and various other resources.
ProQuest Ebook Central ed EBSCO
These platforms as well offer a wide range of manuals and non-fiction books, carefully selected by our librarians.
For more information on these services take a look at our web page.
2.5. Interlibrary loan and document delivery
If the book you are looking for is not owned by our libraries, don't worry: you can ask us to contact our partner libraries for borrowing it for you. This service is called interlibrary loan. You just have to submit a request through our form on Onesearch.
Thanks to the document delivery service we can retrieve articles from journals that we do not own or that are not available online.
The service is free of charge in case of request to external libraries with which we have agreements, otherwise we might ask you for a fee.
Take a look at our ILL-DD service in detail.
2.6. Reference and assistance for exams and thesis
Librarians can guide you through the variety of information sources available. You can come to our libraries to ask for a tailored assistance. We suggest you to send us a request through the portal Ask a librarian (Chiedi in biblioteca), so that you can arrange an appointment with one of us and be sure that we can dedicate to you the right attention.
3. Events, exhibitions and special funds
Events, exhibitions and special funds
Did you know that Florence University has a heritage of more than 4,000,000 items, not a few of which are rare and precious?
The University gives visibility to this treasure through exhibitions, publications and presentations of books, advertising of documentary collections belonging to personalities and institutions related to Florence University. Why don't you take a look at our Events and Exhibitions session to be updated on all the ongoing initiatives and to access the numerous virtual exhibitions available?
Among the exhibits, we particularly suggest the virtual exhibition that proposes and integrates the Unexplored Treasures exhibition. The Libraries of the University of Florence on display (Florence, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, 15 February-23 June 2017), because it can give you a concrete idea of the heritage of our libraries. The exhibition itinerary winds through ancient printed specimens, manuscripts and other documentary sources of great interest, bearing witness to the evolution of the humanities, medicine and surgery, botany and zoology, law, agriculture and architecture, also with reference to Florence.
Plate taken from Henri Louis Duhamel du Monceau, Des semis et plantations des arbres, et de leur culture, Parigi, 1760, one of the rare books of Tesori inesplorati from the Agricultural Library.
3.1. Special collections of the Agriculture Library
The library was established in 1913 by the nucleus of the book collection of the Royal Higher Institute of Forest Sciences of Vallombrosa and preserves valuable editions. The book collection now has about 50,000 volumes.
Materials published before 1989 are not always available on our online catalogue, but only on the printed ones.
The library owns these special collections:
- Fondo Vallombrosa
- Fondo Serpieri
- Fondo Maugini
At the end of the book you will find a presentation of these collections in a nutshell.