Conducting Research After You Graduate

After you graduate, you will lose some of your access to resources at Duke University Libraries. You can still conduct research, but it may require you to do more digging. Here are some tips to help you!

Options at Duke Libraries

Services for Alumni: https://library.duke.edu/services/alumni

Friends of the Duke University Libraries: https://library.duke.edu/support/friends

Stay in touch with us: https://library.duke.edu/about/newsletter

Local Academic Libraries

If you are relocating to a community with a nearby university or college, you can often use some of their library resources. Check their website for exact details of services and policies. Here are common things to look for:

Do they have a Friends of the Library program?

Can you use some of their online databases if you visit their library?

Do they have a rare books and manuscripts collection?

Local Public Libraries

Though they will have less of an academic focus than our libraries, you may be pleasantly surprised by what your public library can provide!

Get a free library card at your local library. Sometimes for a small fee you can also get library cards to access resources at the libraries in surrounding towns.

Find out what kinds of online databases they have. They may have access to newspapers, data sets, journal and magazine articles, streaming films, etc.

Find out how their interlibrary loan program works.

Digital Collections

Many libraries and museums have digitized some of their collections. Examples:

Duke Digital Collections: https://repository.duke.edu/dc

Digital Public Library of America: https://dp.la/

Smithsonian: https://library.si.edu/collections

Online Repositories

There are legitimate online scholarly repositories that may share scholarly articles (often preprints). Examples:

Freely Available Resources and Search Tools: https://guides.library.duke.edu/open-resources-databases

Zenodo: https://zenodo.org/

Humanities Commons: https://hcommons.org/

Figshare: https://figshare.com/