Our online catalogue holds:

• Library pre-1910 author entries
• biographies
• polar and Central Asia subject entries 
• new monographs
• maps to 1940
• Directorate of Overseas Surveys material 
• Manuscript Archives (collection level entries only)
• Picture Library items (contact staff for Antarctic expeditions / Everest images)
• artefacts

  Searching

• ‘words or phrase’ searches all searchable fields.  You can change this to ‘author’, ‘title’, etc
• click ‘Switch to Power Search’ for detailed searches
• use the ‘Format’ tab to limit search to specific material types, eg Archives
• search results display in a basic list
• click ‘Full Details’ button to see an individual record
• click 'Catalog record' tab to see main record
• to display all fields in an individual record, click ‘Change Display’ , then choose ‘All’
• ‘Browse’ (via ‘Switch to Power Search’) creates a headings list giving the number of located records per heading
• all fields in blue are searchable

  Requesting
On registration, you will be provided with a request form. If you wish to order items in advance of your visit, download the 'Request form' from the link on the right, complete and email  to enquiries@rgs.org as an attachment.

Even if you are requesting remotely, we will still need the following fields:

• control number
• class number
  - items with a ‘xx’ number; check if it is a periodical article, a biography/Central Asia/Polar subject entry or published post-1910
  - look up post-1910 authors and periodicals in our remaining card catalogues to find class number
  - for maps, state the country, the map type i.e. G, then number, eg ‘U.S.A. G.45’
• author
• title (include periodical title/volume/issue/pages here when requesting an article)
• publication date/edition

Ensure that you complete all requested fields.