Survival Skills Workshops

Have you taken a look at your syllabi and started wondering how you're going to find the information you need for your papers and other projects? If it doesn't look like your professor is bringing your class to the library for a workshop, you can drop in on one of our Survival Skills Workshops. In our General Research classes, we'll help you figure out the best way to get the research materials you need for your topic*. Come to a RefWorks class to learn about a tool that can help you track and manage the references for your projects, and can take some of the tedium out of making a list of works cited.

*We're holding a class with a special focus on social sciences research -- Saturday, March 13 at 11:30am.

Library Hacks: 24/7 help

As you work on your final papers and projects for the semester, you might find yourself pulling an all-nighter or two to get things done. While the library closes at 2 a.m. most nights, the reference librarians who staff the Research Assistance desk go home long before that. So what can you do if you need help while we're asleep?

Try our 24/7 chat service! Clicking the 24/7 chat button on the library homepage will connect you to a librarian somewhere else. They'll be able to help you navigate LNDL's resources to find the information you need.

You might also find this service handy when the library is closed for Thanksgiving. Take a look at the library hours to see when we're open. You can also look up the hours for the Research Assistance Desk.

Get started on that term paper!

Even though it's only mid-October, you might want to start thinking about any end-of-semester projects or term papers you have to write. Some professors will force you to start early by asking you to hand in various parts of the paper throughout the semester. But if you have a class where the professor isn't doing that, you might find yourself scrambling for sources in the week before it's due. Taking a few minutes now to get started will help you out in the long run. Even if you only start gathering sources and don't look at them right away, you'll still be a step ahead of the game.



If you're not sure where to start, first check out our Survival Skills Workshops. Otherwise, the best place to start is our subject guides. In the "Find Articles and Other Resources" section on the library homepage, there's a menu labeled "Subject." Pull that down and select the appropriate field for your project. This will take you to the Subject Guide for that discipline, where you'll find information on the best research databases (for articles), reference books, websites and other resources. Depending on exactly what you're researching, you might also want to check some of the other subject guides.

For books, you'll want to search the library catalog. You can do that from the library homepage, in the "Find Books and Media" section. If you find something in our catalog that's at another college, you can have it delivered here by clicking the "request" button at the top of the page.

If you want to expand beyond what's available in our catalog, you can search WorldCat (linked at the bottom of the "Find Books and Media" section of the homepage) and find even more books. If we have a book that's listed in WorldCat, you'll see a link to the library catalog to get the call number. For all the rest, you can put in an Interlibrary Loan request (you can link to the form from the top right of the library homepage) and have the book delivered here.

You can also use Interlibrary Loan for articles -- providing you have the whole citation, and haven't been able to find the article through our "Find E-Journals" search (guess what -- that's also on the library homepage) or in the library catalog. Here's a tutorial on how to check those two places before you submit an Interlibrary Loan request for an article.

Take a look at our How do I? page for quick answers to some basic questions about using LNDL. For more in-depth help, check out our Help Guides. Both of these are linked off of the library homepage as well. And of course, you can always contact the Research Assistance desk for help.

Recent Research Help - Study Abroad Students

Recently, librarians staffing our Research Assistance desk helped a student get started on some architectural research. This came with a neat twist: the student is studying abroad in Copenhagen, and needed information on the architecture of two local buildings - the Rosenborg Castle and the Baroque Palace.

We were able to find the website for the Rosenborg Castle, which has some information on the building’s history and architecture. The Baroque Palace was a bit trickier - it turned out that this building is also known as Marshal’s Court, and it’s currently used as a post office.

As the architecture resources at the library were not quite robust enough to provide more detailed information on the palaces, we suggested that the student take advantage of being in the same city as the buildings and visit them to see what she could learn in person. She e-mailed us excitedly to say that the information we provided was quite useful and she had successfully completed her project.

If you need to do research on architecture, here’s where to start:

• JSTOR includes articles on architecture. You can also see the pictures that were originally printed with the articles, and images from ARTstor.
• Bibliography of the History of Art covers architecture. Because it mostly includes citations, there won’t be as many full-text links as you might like. Give ArticleLinker a try, and don’t forget that you can request articles through InterLibrary Loan.
• You can find more resources on our Arts subject page. Don’t forget to check out the tabs at the top of the page for tips on good websites and reference books.

Remember, no matter where in the world you are, we're still your library and will be happy to assist you! For information on how to contact us via e-mail or chat, see the Research Help page.