News & Blog

The following floors in the John C. Hitt Library will close during Spring Break week:
3rd Floor: Saturday 3/5 – Tuesday 3/8
4th Floor: Tuesday 3/8 – Thursday 3/10
1st Floor: Thursday 3/10 – Saturday 3/12

2nd (main) and 5th floors will remain open for the week.
The LibTECH Desk can be reached using the West stairs and the 2 adjacent elevators.
Computers will be removed from 1st, 3rd, and 4th floors beginning Friday, 3/4. Computers will remain available on 2nd (main) and 5th floors.
Reservation of study rooms during the week is suspended. Rooms on open floors will be available without reservation.
There will be some dust and odor resulting from removal of old carpet and the carpet adhesive.
So sorry for the inconvenience; please let service desks know if we can retrieve books for you on a closed floor or help in any other way.

Kanopy has recently added some great new films to its video streaming. New titles include Malala – Shot for Going to School, Chasing Bonnie & Clyde: When Texas Gets Smart on Crime, and A Requiem for Syrian Refugees. To browse more titles visit Kanopy’s website here.

One of UCF’s most interesting electronic resources is CQ Researcher. Its readable reports on political, economic, health, human rights, and many other topics always include a pro-con section, and key statistics, along with a timeline. CQ‘s most recent report on virtual reality is no different: did you know that reality-based game sales will hit $12 billion in 2018, or that the chronology for virtual reality begins in 1838? Click on databases on the Libraries’ front page to search for CQ Researcher and select it from the list of databases beginning with “C”. If you can’t think of a topic for a paper or research project, this is a great place to start!

One of UCF’s database providers, Gale, has recently become a Google for Education Partner. Gale has partnered with Google in 2 ways: by providing integration of popular workflow tools through Google Apps as well as indexing content within Google Scholar. Students or patrons are able to login using their Google Account credentials through Gale’s leading products. Popular products are listed here: Gale’s Leading Products

Google Scholar is now indexing roughly 2.5 million articles of full-text scholarly periodical content from Gale . Users beginning their research in Google Scholar will discover UCF-owned content from Gale and its partners, and either be taken to the full-text of an article (if a UCF-authenticated user) or be directed to an abstract and information on how to access the article through UCF Libraries.

This year, Fair Use Week is February 22-26.

How much do you know about fair use? If you are a student, you probably benefit from it every day, sometimes without realizing it. When does fair use apply to what you do? Here are some examples (via ARL’s infographic):

• For class
  • Writing papers with quotes cited from other works
  • Posting a copy of a news article to Canvas
  • Searching Google Books for a page containing a certain quote
  • Forwarding an email with photos attached
• For fun
  • Posting a short clip from a TV show onto Facebook
  • Taking a selfie with a Star Wars advertisement in the background
  • Writing a chapter of fan fiction and posting it online

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