Tag Archives: Research Help

Feature Articles, Library Hacks, Lilly Library, Music Library, Research Help, Tips and Tricks

Research Tools To Use After You Graduate

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It’s time to graduate!

You’ve reached this important milestone in your academic career and are about to do great things! Some of you will embark on your careers shortly after graduation, some will go on to graduate and professional schools, and others may even write and get published. Whatever path you take, there’s a good chance you will still need to perform research, which leads to the question…

Will I be able to access Duke University Libraries’ resources after I graduate?

Unfortunately, you will lose some of your access to these resources. However, you can still conduct research, but it may require you to do more digging.

Check out these helpful tips!

Options at Duke Libraries

Local Academic Libraries

If you are relocating to a community with a nearby university or college, you may be able to use their library resources. Visit their website for exact details of services and policies.

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?
  • Do they allow any of their books to be checked out to the public?

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 offers!

  • Apply for 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 a few of their collections. Examples:

Online Repositories

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

With these tools in hand, you’ll be ready to accomplish whatever research needs you may have in the future!

Announcement, Lilly Library, Music Library

The New Chat App for Mobile Research

If you want easy access to answers for burning research questions we have the app for you!

Duke University Libraries are pleased to introduce the new chat app from our library chat vendor.

Go to this link and download the app that corresponds to your device:

http://askalibrarian.ninja/

When you open the app on your device, it will show you a world map and give you locator options.  Navigate or browse to Duke and save the location.

When our chat service is not available the chat option will not show on your screen.   The app also provides access to the library homepage,  email, and  phone number.  The app is a mobile version of Ask a Librarian

 

Collections, East Campus Libraries, Lilly Library, Music Library, Services, Uncategorized

New to the Libraries? Tips for Duke 2022

… What are the libraries’ hours? … How do I find a book? … Who can help me with research? … Where can I print?*

Duke’s newest students can find the answers to these questions – and more – on the Library’s Services for First-Year Students page.

Lilly Library front portico
Lilly Library on East Campus

Each August, a new class of undergraduates arrives in Durham ready to immerse themselves in the Duke Community. Duke University Libraries serve as the core of intellectual life on campus. Because East Campus is home to the First-Year students, Lilly and Music Libraries have the unique opportunity to introduce our newest “Dukies” to the array of Library resources and research services available.

To help navigate the vast library resources, there is a portal especially for First-Year Students. Through this portal page, new students (and even some not-so-new) can discover all that the Duke University Libraries offer:

*Learn the answers in our list of the Top Questions, as determined by First-Year Library Advisory Board students.

Here’s to a great and successful
Fall Semester and First-Year ahead!

Stay connected with your East Campus Libraries

Lilly Library Social Media Links Lilly Library  Facebook  – Instagram  – Twitter
Duke Music Library Facebook

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Announcement, Catalog Tip, Citing Sources, Cool tools, Database Tip, Duke researchers, East Campus Libraries, Feature Articles, Instruction, Just for Fun, Librarians, Library Hacks, Life in the library, Lilly Library, Music Library, Research Help, Services, Tips and Tricks, Tips for students

The First-Year Library Experience

Duke Libraries – Here to Help You

 

Lilly Library on East Campus
Lilly Library on East Campus

When is the library open? How do I find a book? Where do I print?*

Duke University’s newest students can find the answers to these questions (and more!) on the Library’s First-Year Library Services portal page.

Each August, a new class of undergraduates arrives in Durham ready to immerse themselves in the Duke Community.   Duke University Libraries serve as the core of intellectual life on campus. On East Campus particularly, the Lilly and Music Libraries have the unique opportunity to introduce our newest “Dukies” to the array of Library resources and research services available.

To help navigate the vast Library resources, we’ve created a portal especially for First-Year students. Through this portal page, new students (and even some not-so-new) can discover all that the Duke University Libraries offer:

Perkins-reading roomQuick Facts:  about collections and loan policies
Where:  to study, print, and … eat!
How:  to find and check out books & material, and get…
Help!:  Meet the  “who” – Librarians, Specialists, & Residence Hall Librarians
Research 101:  how to navigate the Research Process
Citation 101:  how to cite using recommended  styles
*And when is the Library open?
Find the answer in our list of the Top 12 Questions, developed with input from First-Year Library Advisory Board students.

Here’s to a great Fall Semester!

 

 

 

Library Hacks, Research Help

Lost in the sea of government information

It can be like looking for a needle in a haystack to find information from the US federal government.  Most of this information is now online, but this hasn’t made the task any easier.  Here are just a few of the ways of searching for government information (documents or data) when you don’t know where to go.

The Government Printing Office (GPO) has for many years provided access to authoritative versions of major government publications through their GPO Access web site.  The information on GPO Access is in the process of being migrated to GPO’s Federal Digital System (FDsys). The migration is occurring on a collection-by-collection basis.  The information on GPO Access will remain current and continue to be available until migration is complete.  Using the “browse” feature to scan though available collections can
be most fruitful.  This site is especially good for legislative and regulatory materials, and for regularly published reports such as the US federal budget, but also provides a link to GPO’s online bookstore
for more general government publications.

The FedStats website provides links to statistical pages of US federal government agencies.  You can look up the statistic by topic without knowing in advance which agency produces it.  The “About” page provides more information about what’s included in FedStats.  Although this may lead to a lot of extractable and downloadable raw data in addition to statistics that are presented online, if you specifically need to locate machine-readable empirical or geospatial datasets generated by the US federal government you can try the Data.gov website. Datasets here may be in one of more the following formats: XML, CSV/Text, KML/KMZ, Shapefile, RDF, Other.

General search engines to search across websites of federal government agencies and Congress include USA.gov (the “official” such search engine) and Google U.S. Government (formerly Google Uncle Sam).  Always feel free to consult with the library’s public documents subject librarian, Mark Thomas, and visit the paper collection of federal government publications (many older ones aren’t digitized or even in the library catalog) on the second floor of Perkins Library.

Cool tools, Library Hacks

Ever wonder what you can ask a reference librarian?

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During the month of January, Reference librarians at Perkins Library answered a total of 1,795 questions, excluding questions sent in by chat.

Here is a sampling of the questions asked last month –

* Need help tracking down the volume in which a 1883 botanical illustration appeared?

* game theoretic applications to executive compensation?

* US and global railcar manufacturing?

* Seeking 1968 Soviet physics journal?

* I spilled some coffee–do you have any paper towels?

* I am trying to locate a book of collected drawings of the Great Kanto Earthquake by children. I have found an oblique reference to it in a caption to an illustration without any bibliographic info?

* Stem cell biology in traumatic brain injury: effects of injury and strategies for repair?

* what citation management tool do you recommend?

* GIS : how to get started; availability of data for India?

* trouble accessing journal article?

* help finding articles for class?

* speech by Booker T. Washington in Atlanta, 1895?

* can you eat in the library?

* How to find Russian books?

* 2001 Indian Census volumes for Gujarat

* I can’t find this shelf at all, where are these books?

You can ask reference questions in person (Perkins Reference Desk), im/chat (click on the askusNOW icon), email (askref@duke.edu) or by phone (660-5880). Save some time and get the information you need quickly!

Written by Anne Langley