Scholarly Internet resources available 24 hours a day

submitted by Linda Farynk

January 29, 2007 —

I was glad to see the Vanguard Vision piece in the Jan. 22 issue about extending the library's hours. Here's a quote, though, that caught my eye:

"A lot of papers need sources, and a lot of professors require scholarly sources. Unfortunately, the Internet is often a less than adequate source of scholarly material, and after 11 p.m. that's what students are left with."

It seems that the writer of the piece (and perhaps many students, as well) may not be fully aware of just how much scholarly information the library makes available electronically, 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Students can search over 100 online databases, many of which provide access to the full text of journal articles online.

In addition, the number of electronic journals with full text available that students can access through the library is now up to over 11,000 titles (which is about 10 times the number we have in paper format on the library shelves). We also have about 9,000 electronic books as well.

Perhaps this information would be helpful to students so they can see how much material is available electronically through the library, potentially making extending the library hours not all that necessary.

Linda Farynk
Director, Melvin J. Zahnow Library