Q. How do I order items from the Digital Collections site?

On the Digital Collections site you’ll discover items from our library and archives collections spanning subjects from Western History and Canadian Studies to Geoscience and Biological Sciences and everything in between.  

The University of Calgary Libraries has made every possible effort to clear these items for public viewing online.

You may see additional rights to download and reuse individual items. For example, items in the Herbarium and Invertebrates Digital Collections are all licensed with a CC-BY-ND license.  

In other cases, we may be able to provide a downloadable copy upon request.  

To order items:

Register/Login

• Login to https://digitalcollections.ucalgary.ca.UCalgary members can "Login" using their UCalgary credentials.
• Not affiliated with UCalgary? Create a Digital Collections account by clicking "Register" in the top menu.

Add to cart

• Individual items have an “Add to cart” button.  The "Add to cart" option is available on items where the library can provide downloadable copies upon request or direct you to the copyright holder and provide access on their behalf.     
• Select this button to add an item to your cart.    

Review and place order

• Once you’ve added all items of interest (up to 25 per order), select "Cart" from the top right menu bar.    
• Let us know how you would like to use each item.
• Some items may only have certain viewing or downloading options available due to licensing, copyright and other variables.
• Finally, fill in an overall description and priority for your order. Please note that rush requests are subject to rush fees.    

Orders for images at high resolution, or a higher resolution than already available, are subject to fees for service to digitize, store and check copyright permissions.

Once your request is received, a team member will let you know if there are any fees, digitization steps, or copyright considerations, and let you know the overall order status. You can also check our FAQ for our digitization fee schedule. 

Messages from the library team will be sent to the email of the account used to place the order.   Please allow-list emails from the Digital Collections site.  

After Ordering

• Track the status of your order from the "Orders" menu.     
• When approved, download items from "Authorized Orders" . If fees are associated with items in your order, use the "Checkout" button to pay via credit card prior to download.     
• Review the Terms of Use when downloading – these are the terms that the library is able to provide items to you under
• Invoices can be viewed and printed from the "My Transactions" area.

More of a visual learner? Watch the How to Order Items from the Digital Collections site video.