University of Warsaw LibraryUniversity of Warsaw Library

Individuals who can borrow materials from BUW	Number of borrowed materials	Borrowing period
UW employees and doctoral students	20 vol.	90 days
Students of all undergraduate, graduate and postgraduate programmes conducted at UW	10 vol.	30 days
UW students with a certificate of completion	3 vol.	30 days
UW doctoral students with a certificate of completion	3 vol.	30 days
Members of BiblioWawa Reciprocal Borrowing Programme	3 vol.	30 days
Owners of the UW Alumni Club card	3 vol.	30 days
Libraries of UW organisational units	20 vol.	30 days
Other Warsaw libraries and institutions	10 vol.	30 days

Books can be borrowed at the Circulation Desk (check the opening hours), Selfchecks or Pick-up Locker.

 

What can and cannot be borrowed

If you have the appropriate rights to borrow (see the point above), you can borrow books and Kindle readers from BUW (see below for more information on Kindle readers).

You will not borrow from BUW:

• publications from the reference collections of BUW internal departments;
• special collections;
• most of the encyclopaedic, dictionary, bibliographical and other information publications;
• journals and newspapers;
• printed materials from 1919-1950;
• materials in a poor state of preservation;
• unbound overprints, small prints and small-format publications;
• rare publications, difficult to acquire, with a large number of plates, maps and engravings and volumes with loose pages;
• cimelia;
• microforms;
• publications from the Open Stacks not available for borrowing, marked with a red sticker or a blue sticker with a red dot.

Check the Item policy in the Catalogue:

Item policy Na miejscu = On site means that you can use this publication in the Library only. If the location of the book is BUW Wolny Dostęp = Open Stacks, it will be marked with a red sticker (or a blue sticker with a red dot). (lub nalepką z czerwoną kropką). Find it on the shelf yourself. If the location of the book is BUW Magazyn = Closed Stacks, request it to the Reading Room.

Item policy Do wypożyczenia = Possible to borrow means you can borrow the publication from BUW. If the location of the book is BUW Wolny Dostęp = Open Stacks or Księgozbiór Dydaktyczny = Textbook Collection, it will be marked with a blue, yellow or white sticker. Find it on the shelf yourself and borrow at the Circulation Desk or a Selfcheck. If the location of the book is BUW Magazyn = Closed Stacks, request it to the Circulation Desk or the  Pick-up Locker.

 

If the message ‘Out of library. On loan until …’ appears in the Catalogue, it means the publication is currently borrowed by another reader. You can reserve it (more information below) and borrow it when it is returned.

Method, execution mode and time of the Requests delivery from the Closed Stacks

Request method	Request execution mode	Request delivery time
Request option in the online catalogue, Request option in the Digitised Card Catalogues.	requests placed from Monday to Saturday until 8 pm are delivered on the same day, requests placed from Monday to Friday after 8 pm are delivered on the next day, requests placed on Saturday after 8 pm and on Sunday are delivered on Monday.	1 hour

Interlibrary Loan

If you study or work at UW, you can order books and articles that are not available in our collections or in any of the Warsaw libraries. For more information, please see the Interlibrary Loan page. Check the opening hours.

Books can be returned at the Circulation Desk (check the opening hours), Selfchecks or to the Return Box.

Books returned at the Circulation Desk and Selfchecks are immediately taken off your account. Return Kindle readers only at the Circulation Desk!

Books returned to the Return Box are taken off your account with a delay, as the Return Box is emptied once an hour (during the opening times of the Circulation Desk). Books returned to the Return Box on business days after 8 pm are are taken off your account on the next day.

You can return books to the Return Box in person or ask someone to return them for you. The Return Box is available 24/7 and you don’t need a library card to leave the books there.

You can also return the books by post or courier at your own expense to the BUW address (ul. Dobra 56/66, 00-312 Warsaw) with the note ‘Wypożyczalnia Miejscowa’ (= Circulation Desk). Please note that the day of delivery to the Library, not the date of dispatch, is taken into account when returning a book.

Once you have returned the book, be sure to check your account within the next 5 days to see if the book has been taken off your account. If not, please contact the Requests and Complaints Office at BUW. After 5 days, complaints will not be accepted.

You will be informed about the upcoming book return date by email 2 days before the designated due date.

If you are still using the book, renew it yourself via your library account, at the Circulation Desk (check the opening hours), or a Selfcheck.

You can renew the book:

• only before the return date,
• if it has not been reserved by another reader (Loan Status: Recalled)

You can extend the return period up to the ‘Maximum renewal date: …’. After this date, you must return the books. If you still want to use them, you can borrow them again.

If you fail to return the borrowed materials on time, your account will be blocked.

If your account is blocked, you cannot borrow, renew, request or reserve any more books.

A fee is automatically charged for overdue materials:

• 0,40 PLN per each day for one book,
• 1 PLN per each day for a Kindle reader.

The fee will only stop being charged when the book or reader is returned. To unlock your account, pay the charged overdue fee.

You can pay the fee:

on site at BUW (please note: cashless payment only: card, NFC): at the Circulation Desk (check the opening hours), on the Selfchecks, at the Registration Point (check the opening hours).

via a bank transfer (only for books borrowed from BUW*): Uniwersytet Warszawski Bank Millennium S. A. – 69 11602202 0000 0000 6085 0087 (and in case of transfers from abroad: BIC/S.W.I.F.T.: BIGBPLPWXXX IBAN: P L 6 9 1 1 6 0 2 2 0 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 00 6 0 8 5 0 08 7) with a title „Opłata za przetrzymanie książek z BUW” (“Fine for overdue BUW items”). The information about your outstanding payments shall be removed from your library account after receiving the information about the payment (money transfer) made from the UW Bursar’s Office, which takes a few days. *Please note! Fines for overdue items borrowed from other UW faculty libraries are paid solely to the bank accounts given on the faculty websites!

If the book is borrowed by another reader (information in the Catalogue: ‘Not Available. On loan until …’), you can reserve it in the same way as you request books from the Closed Stacks. The reserved book will appear on your account under the Requests tab with the information about your place in the queue: ‘Request. Not started. Place in queue is …’. When the book is returned, its status on your account will change to ‘Request. On Hold Shelf until …’. You will also receive an email informing you that the book can be collected.

The requested book is waiting at the Circulation Desk (check the opening hours) until the date stated on your account and in the email.

If you have the appropriate rights to borrow books from BUW, you can also borrow a Kindle Reader.

You don’t request the Readers via the Catalogue, just ask about their availability at the Circulation Desk (check the opening hours). Borrow a Kindle here for 30 days (you can only rent one Reader per account).

You can extend the return period of the Reader up to the ‘Maximum renewal date: …’. After this date, you must return the books. If you still want to use them, you can borrow them again. You can renew the Reader after logging in to your library account or at the Circulation Desk (check the opening hours).

Some of the Readers have already uploaded books sorted by the subjects corresponding to the disciplines present at UW. You can find information about the books uploaded to the devices in the Catalogue. These Readers have a so-called ‘parental lock’ set up to protect the books on the device. There are also ‘empty’ Readers with no content uploaded. You can upload your own files onto each Reader using the cable which is supplied with the case.

Before returning the Reader, remove all self-loaded material from it and ensure that the device battery is at least 50% charged.

You are financially responsible for an overdue (fee of 1 PLN per each day after the return date), lost or damaged Reader.

For detailed rules on borrowing of Kindle Readers, please refer to Rules for borrowing electronic book (e-book) readers at the University of Warsaw Library (BUW).