After many years of staffing the Research Help Center, we have decided to do away with the Center and offer a single point of service in the library. Now to get research help or help with any of the Library's resources, students and faculty can just stop at the Check-out Desk and a friendly Librarian will be happy to help. Of course you can still connect with us by chat, email, and phone.
Even better, schedule an appointment with a Librarian. Tell us about your project and we'll come armed with all sorts of information to help you. Appointments can be in-person or in an online meeting room and we will be available to meet with you from 8 am to 9 pm. Go to Meet with a Librarian, to schedule a focused and convenient research help appointment.
Are you concerned about your students’ research? Research appointments with a librarian are a great way to help your students improve and get personalized strategies for their projects. Some faculty find it useful to require (or give extra credit for) scheduling these appointments. We’d be happy to work with you on this.
Our biggest project this summer has been upgrading our book catalog and library software and we are very excited to share it with you finally. The new system is a major improvement, but also a significant change. One feature we are very excited about is email check-in and check-out receipts that will let you know when your items are due and that they've been checked in. Those of you that are familiar with WorldCat will notice many similarities since the system is based on the same framework. Some of the improvements you will see when searching are:
· your results are now sorted by relevance rather than how recently we purchased the title
· search limits are easy to find and apply, similar to our article databases
· while our items are presented at the top of the list, results from libraries across the world are also easy to find.
The biggest change, however, is the integration of our databases into the search results. A basic search will retrieve articles from Academic OneFile and JSTOR in addition to our books. Using the advanced search will allow you to add additional databases such as SportDiscus, PsycInfo, Literature Resource Center, ERIC, or ATLA Religion.
The best place to start searching our new catalog is from our new website. It’s been over 3 years since we’ve done a major overhaul of the Library’s website despite the many template changes the College website has gone through. With all of the other changes we’ve made, we decided it was time to improve the digital face of the library. The new website should offer greater functionality and make it easier to locate the information you need.
If you've done any searching in our databases this week, you may have noticed a change in how to log-in to our databases. We were able to get our system to talk to the campus system and now you can use the same username and password you use to log-in to your computer to log-in to our databases. As part of this change you will be required to log-in to our databases both on and off campus.
We are also in the process of creating a research guide that will be a one-stop shop for tutorials, updates, and general information about all of the changes happening this summer. Please check it out, keeping in mind it’s a work in progress. We welcome your feedback and suggestions for what else you’d like to see there.