AN OVERVIEW OF LIBRARY SOURCES
Your college library is an immense collection of print, media, and online sources. Learning your way around the library is the first step in locating sources effectively.
LEARNING YOUR WAY AROUND THE LIBRARY
It is a good idea to become familiar with your college library before you need to use it. Following are a few ways to do so.
- Take a tour of the library. Many colleges offer formal library tours during the first few weeks of the term, or your instructor may arrange one. On a tour, you’ll learn where everything is located and discover how to use important services, such as interlibrary loan (borrowing materials from other libraries), and how to find reliable sources using your library’s search tools. Check the library, too, for places to study, such as a library carrel or cubicle or a room where you can collaborate with classmates.
- Take a tour of your library’s Web site. Most college libraries provide access to rich resources through the library’s Web site (see Figure 23.2). Often students can search for books, articles, multimedia sources, and more; access citation (or reference) managers (to help you manage sources and create lists of works cited or references); request sources through interlibrary loan; find a list of library hours or extended hours during midterms and finals; or ask a reference librarian for help. Visit your library’s Web site to find out what services are available online as well as face-to-face.
Figure 23.1: FIGURE 23.2 Sample Library Home Page
Figure 23.1: The University of North Carolina Library home page allows students to search for books, articles, and other resources all through a single portal. The home page also provides access to a wealth of other useful information. Courtesy of University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Libraries
MAKING USE OF REFERENCE LIBRARIANS
Reference librarians can help you at any stage in the research process, advising you about what sources to use and where to locate them. For example, reference librarians can help you do all of the following.
- Use library resources to make a topic broader, narrower, or more relevant.
- Get you started by steering you toward reference resources or basic books and articles that provide background information on your topic.
- Identify other libraries or special collections that might be relevant to your research, then help you request those materials through interlibrary loan.
- Help you decide which search terms to use, identify appropriate specialized databases, and learn how to search those databases most efficiently.
- Obtain the full text of articles for which you have only summary information (abstracts).
- Show you how to use various citation management systems such as EndNote or RefWorks to create works-cited or references lists.
In short, reference librarians can often save you time, so don’t hesitate to ask them for help.