Library & Archives

What is Omni?

Omni is a unified academic search tool that searches books, articles, and many other types of resources to ease your research efforts. Omni is also a collaboration between 16 Ontario university libraries to standardize the searching and borrowing experience.

Where do I find Omni?

Omni opens if you do a search on our library home page under the Omni tab.

I found a problem / I have a comment about Omni: who do I contact?

We would be pleased to address any problems (or comments) that you have! Write to us at omni@laurentian.ca or contact your librarian.

What is the Omni advantage?

Through a single search box, Omni returns a unified set of results not only from our libraries’ collections of physical items, but across all of the research resources to which we have access, such as journal articles, ebooks, conference papers, videos, data sets, newspapers, theses, government documents, and market reports. You can quickly refine the results by type of resource, date, author, subject, and more to find the precise materials that you need.

So, is Omni the only search tool I'll ever need?

Omni is a great first start for searching, but not all of the library’s databases for journal articles and other types of resources are displayed by Omni. For a comprehensive search, you may also need to be familiar with databases in your subject area to find resources outside of what Omni offers. To help you find the right databases to meet your research needs, the library offers research guides in the subject area taught at the University. 

How can I request an item from another library through Omni?

Omni lets you easily request physical books, digitized journal articles, and digitized chapters or excerpts of books from outside of Laurentian's collection.

1. Sign into your Omni account.
2. Search in Omni for the resource you want. If the resource is not available from Laurentian or one of the Omni libraries, check the Add results beyond Laurentian's collection box to include research resources to which we do not have direct access.
3. Click Get it from another library to create a request.

We will obtain a copy for you free of charge (with some exceptions)! Journal articles, book chapters, and book excerpts normally arrive via your email account within 24 hours. Physical items may take up to 10 days to arrive. If the item comes from another Omni library, then you will have a regular 120-day renewable loan. If the item comes from a non-Omni library, you will normally have a six week non-renewable loan.

How many items can I take out?

Students, staff, and faculty may borrow up to 500 library items (books, DVDs, etc.) Alumni and community members may borrow up to 50 items. 

How long can I keep my library items? 

For students, staff, and faculty, the loan period is 120 days for books and 14 days for media (DVDs, CDs, etc.). Loans are 60 days for books and 14 days for media for alumni and community members. If the item needs to be placed on reserve for a course, the library will recall it to shorten the due date.

How do I renew books?

Students, staff, and faculty have unlimited renewals unless:

• You have accumulated more than $20 in fines; or

• You have 1 recalled item that is overdue.

Alumni and community members may renew items up to three times.

To renew your items, sign in to your Omni account and select My Loans from the menu. Check the items to renew, and click Renew. The items display the new due date.

What happens if I do not return a recalled item by its due date?

Fees will apply. Books not delivered by the due date are subject to a fine of $4 per day to a maximum of $56. For more details, please see our Library Borrowing Policy and Fines.

Can I recall materials that are on loan? 

No. But you can request a copy of the item from another Omni library.

Can I request items?

Yes, when you request an item, it will be placed on hold for you and transferred if necessary to pick up at your preferred library. Pick up libraries include the J.N. Desmarais Library (Laurentian) and Architecture Library. This includes books that are on the shelf, as long as they are not available through the HathiTrust repository. 

You can also place a request for a scanned chapter of a physical book, or a scanned article from a print journal, and we will email it to you free of charge.

Will the fines for lost items be removed from my record if I find and return the items?

If an item is declared lost and then is subsequently returned, the non-refundable administration charge of $25 remains and the default $125 default replacement charge is removed from the patron record. 

If there are fines associated with a recalled item being returned late, these fines will remain on the patron record.

Will alumni and community borrowers get the same privileges across Omni libraries?

No, alumni and community borrower data will not be shared between Omni libraries, meaning that privileges may vary between libraries.

Is the old library system gone for good? 

Yes. It’s time to say goodbye to Conifer, developed by the Evergreen open source community, which we utilized since 2009.