OLRC holds over 100,000 items, encompassing religious studies, social sciences and humanities.
Loanable material is on the first floor, in the Religion and Society Hall and the Humanities Hall.
Availability of materials
Some reference material is housed in closed access stacks and is available for library use only. Material from the stacks has to be collected by library staff, and may not be immediately available. Visitors are advised to contact the library in advance to check on the availability of material.
The Mingana collection of Syriac and Arabic manuscripts, plus the Harold Turner collection of documents on the subject of African Initiated Churches, were previously housed in the OLRC. They are now located in the Cadbury Research Library.
The Baykov Collection, European Documentation Collection, German Documentation Collection, Arabic Collection, and Oriental Collection are now located in the Main Library.
Posters and maps from the Baykov Collection are located in the Cadbury Research Library. OLRC is also home to part of the Eton Myers Collection.