If you were unable to join us for our Faculty College session,
New Library Resources and Research Tips here are the highlights.
As we start this new academic year, we would like to remind faculty that the AU Library offers services to support full-time and adjunct faculty at the main campus and the off-campus centers. Each academic department is assigned a faculty librarian. The library liaison is your contact to request the purchase of books or other materials for the library collection. The Reference and Instruction Librarians are also happy to provide library instruction to any class, whether on the main campus or at an off-campus center. These library sessions can be tailored to meet your objectives for a particular course or assignment, or to introduce your students to library resources. For information on scheduling a library session or to discuss the collection with your library liaison please call us at x5402 or stop in.
In addition the AU Library supports teaching by providing Course Reserves, both in print and electronic. You may place course related readings, videos or items on reserve at the library for your students to use.
Why should you use E-Reserves?
10) Students aren’t forced to compete for limited copies of reserve materials, nor are they hindered by time restrictions.
9) Materials may be used by more than one student at a time.
8) The Electronic Reserves are never closed! It’s online and available anytime of the day.
7) The Electronic Reserves are user friendly. Links, documents and audiovisuals are available at any computer from a single access point.
6) More feedback for you! We can generate printable statistics on the use of course materials.
5) Electronic Reserve materials cannot be lost or stolen.
4) No muss, no fuss. Just provide the library with a clean, single-sided copy of print materials. We create the digitized copies and link them to your course reserves.
3) You can request that certain items be accessible for certain periods of time. At the
end of the semester all materials are withdrawn from view, but will be archived
electronically for future use.
2) Distance learners now have access to the same materials as on-campus students.
1) No more excuses from students! See above reasons.
When it comes to research the AU Library subscribes to over 200 research databases. A number of new databases have recently been added, these include but are not limited to,
CQ Researcher,
Biography Reference Bank,
Science Online,
Scientific American Archive Online,
Nature,
World Book Web,
Mental Measurements Yearbook,
Tests in Print,
Philosopher’s Index and
Christian Periodical Index.
Over 60 of our databases are provided by EBSCO which recently launched their new interface EBSCO 2.0 (view a sample using
Academic Search Complete). Some of the new features include a more basic search screen, images, mouse over abstracts, Smart Text Searching which allows users to copy and paste an entire page of text into a search field, RSS feeds and the ability to copy a persistent link to the article. For more information on our new databases or for tips and tricks for searching our databases don’t hesitate to ask.
AU Library 2.0 offers two new features this year.
- Ask Us! Students or faculty can send an instant message to the librarian on duty and receive instant library assistance. From the library webpage click on the Help page to chat with a librarian. We will do our best to answer all questions, however students and faculty that visit us in person receive priority.
- Libguides, these are new subject specific research guides. Each subject area will have its own online guide that includes new or featured books, reference books, recommended databases, and librarian evaluated websites. Many guides also feature podcasts, news feeds and videos. These guides are a great starting place for students to begin their research. You can access these guides from our webpage under Internet Resources, Subject Guides. Look for these new guides to begin replacing the current guides this semester.
For additional information please contact us: Reference Desk Ext. 5402 or e-mail library@ashland.edu
Article submitted by: Sara Klink
