Request material or make a storage retrieval request

1. In Helka, search for the material you wish to reserve and log in. University of Helsinki students and staff log in with UH user account. Other customers log in using the email address. Helka will send a login link to the email address in your customer information.
2. Select a pickup location when making the reservation.  
3. You will be notified by email when the material is available. The notification includes your personal request ID number that you will need when collecting the material. Your request ID is also displayed in Helka. The request ID is personal and stays the same for all your reservations.  
4. You can pick your reservation up as self service. The reservation pickup shelf is organized by request ID numbers. Please remember to use the self-service lending machine to check your reservations out. Reservations can only be borrowed with the library belonging to the customer who made the reservation.  

Standard loanable material with a loan period of 14 days or 28 days waits at the pickup shelf for 5 business days. A fee of €3 will be charged for any uncollected reservations. If you do not need the item you requested, please cancel the reservation in Helka.  

Members of the University of Helsinki staff can request books (excluding textbooks) and articles in periodicals to be delivered to their desk. To qualify for this service, the user’s customer information in Helka must include a University email address and the user must be indicated as belonging to the University staff.

You can also request material, free of charge, from the Library’s closed stacks (e.g., theses and the student nation collection).

Most of the materials in the closed stacks are available for home loan. Theses, as well as old and rare books and journals, are not available for home loan, but you can read them in the Library.

Make your request for material from the closed stacks in Helka, the same way you would make a regular reservation.

1. In the Helka database, search for the material you wish to request and log in.
   • University of Helsinki students and staff log in using their University of Helsinki user ID.
   • Other customers log in using their email address; Helka will send a login link to the email address in your customer information.
2. Select a suitable pickup location for collecting the material. The options available for the material in question are displayed in Helka.
   • If the material in the closed stacks is available for home loan, you can choose any University Library site as the pickup location.
   • However, if the material is not available for home loan (e.g., theses, serial publications and rare books), the pickup location is always the library where the material is housed.
3. You can check your Helka customer information to see when the requested material is ready for collection. You will also be notified by email when the material is available.

Reference material and material from the closed stacks are kept reserved for 20 business days. If the library is closed during public holidays and eves, the pickup times will be longer than normal.