Whenever you have research to do for a class, for your job, or for your personal life, visit a library. We can’t stress this enough. Although the Internet is loaded with billions of pages of information, don’t be fooled into thinking it will serve all of your needs. For one thing, you’ll have to sort through a lot of junk to find your way to good-quality online sources. More important, if you limit yourself to the Web, you’ll miss out on some of the best materials. Although we often think that everything is electronic and can be found through a computer, a great deal of valuable information is still stored in traditional print formats and your college library database.

Every library has books and journals as well as a great number of items in electronic databases that aren’t available on public Web sites. Librarians at your college work with your instructors to determine the kinds of materials that support their teaching. Most libraries also have other types of information, such as government documents, microfilm, photographs, historical documents, maps, music, and films. A key component of being information literate is determining the kinds of sources you need to satisfy your research questions.

A college library is far more than a document warehouse, however. For starters, most campus libraries have Web sites and apps that offer lots of help for students. Some provide guidelines on writing research papers, conducting online searches, or navigating the stacks—the area of a library in which most of the books are shelved.

Of course, no one library can possibly own everything you might need or enough copies of each item, so groups of libraries share their materials with each other. If your college library does not have a journal or book that looks promising for your project, or the item you need is checked out, you can use interlibrary loan, a service that allows you to request an item at no charge from another library at a different college or university. The request process is simple, and the librarians can help you get started.

If it is difficult for you to go to your college library because of your commuting, family, work challenges, time constraints, or because you are an online student who lives far from the actual campus and its library, you will still have off-campus, online access to library materials through a school-provided ID and password. You can also have online chats with librarians who can help you in real time. To learn more, check out your library’s Web site, or e-mail or phone the reference desk. Be sure to use the handouts and guides that are available at the reference desk or online. You will also find tutorials and virtual tours that will help you become familiar with the collections, services, and spaces available at your library.