News & Blog

Our featured question for February 2021 is: “What do I do if the article/book I need isn’t available through UCF Libraries?”

Interlibrary Loan is the service for you!  Does your article have the Request Item/See Options link?  Have you searched the Books/Catalog for a title and it doesn’t come up in your search results?  If so you can use the free service available to UCF students, faculty and staff.  They can borrow a physical book for you from another library or get the PDF of an article.

The video that was here is out of date and has been archived. Click here to download the video for viewing.

For more information go to library.ucf.edu/services/borrowing-from-other-libraries/

Our featured question this month is: “Why can’t I log in to access online resources off campus?

Here are some options you can try:

• Use another browser
• Clear your cache and cookies
• Reset your NID password
• If you logged in through WebCourses and used Library Tools, try logging on directly through the library website instead
• If you are logging in from your workplace, you may be trying to access OpenAthens from behind a firewall.  Please contact your workplace IT to see if there is a work around

Tried all of the above and still having issues?  Please email our eResources team at eresourc@ucf.edu Provide the browsers you have used, the options you have tried and error messages you have received.

Welcome to the Libraries new blog topic: Ask A Librarian Featured Questions. Our popular virtual Ask Us reference service supports the UCF community from wherever they are located. It provides options for chat and text from the UCF Libraries’ homepage in addition to phone and email support.

The most asked question on Ask Us: “How do I open this article?”

This question comes to Ask Us staff largely through our most used mode of contact, our chat feature.  

When someone clicks on an article in a result list accessed through QuickSearch, there is a link to our chat widget “Ask a Librarian Chat” below the article record.

Taking a look, we can check the left side of the page and see which link is provided.

• Find Full Text – click this button and on the next page select the link: Full text from (database name). The database should open with the article information and a PDF link, if not, you can copy and paste the article title into the database search box.
  
• PDF Full Text – click this link and it will go directly to the PDF of the article
  
• Request Item/See Options – this link indicates that this article is not available through QuickSearch. Please note that not all of our Databases are searched when using QuickSearch. Click on the link and another tab will open with links to check other options. A good one to try first is “Search for (journal name) in Publication Finder” to see if we have access to the journal and year the article is from. If so you can click on the Database link that contains the article, and search for the article title in that Database. Another option to try is: “Search for this article title in Google Scholar” sometimes it may come up and have a PDF link to the right of it. If after this you cannot access the article you can click on the link: “Request this item through interlibrary loan.”  This will bring you to the NID login and then to the auto-filled request form. ILL will access the PDF for you from another library, this usually takes 3-5 days.

Make sure to visit Ask Us to ask questions about research, library resources, services, and policies. We look forward to assisting you!

The video that was here is out of date and has been archived. Click here to download the video for viewing.

Wednesday, October 7, 2020
3:00 pm- 4:30 pm

Register to attend at Zoom – Supporting Hispanic/Latinx Communities through Florida Libraries 

Please join us next week for the UCF Libraries’ inaugural event to celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month, “Supporting Hispanic/LatinX Communities through Florida Libraries.” Sandy Avila, Science Librarian and UCF’s Hispanic Serving Institutions (HSI) Engagement Librarian will moderate an informative panel highlighting the role Florida library staff play in supporting their diverse Hispanic/LatinX communities in the Panhandle, around Central Florida, and in South Florida.

Come join our fantastic speakers from the Bay County Public Library, Orange County Library System, and Broward College as we share insights into our Hispanic communities and how we are serving their needs.

Heather Ogilvie
Bay County Public Library

Heather Ogilvie is the Outreach Librarian for Bay County Public Library in Panama City, Florida. She specializes in nontraditional library services, using community partnerships to create innovative solutions for underserved populations. Ms. Ogilvie was the recipient of the 2020 American Library Association’s Lemony Snicket Prize for Noble Librarians Faced with Adversity for her work in Florida Panhandle after the aftermath of Hurricane Michael a Category 5 storm. Despite adversity, Ms. Ogilvie was able to serve outreach sites by helping to rebuild personal libraries destroyed in the storm and other materials to assist in community recovery.

Brigitte Martinez
Orange County Library System

Brigitte Martinez is the Assistant Manager for Marketing and Public Relations at the Orange County Library System. She studied Biology at Universidad del Sagrado Corazón, in Santurce Puerto Rico.
Ms. Martinez’s job is to inform and educate Central Florida’s multicultural community by holding events, opportunities and programs that the Orange County Library offers. These services help improve lives.

Cristy Moran
Broward College

Cristy Moran is a faculty librarian at Broward College, an institution which serves a predominantly minority population, including a 38% Latinx student body. She is a critical librarian, a lifelong South Floridian, and Hispanic-American of Cuban heritage.

Are you working on planning your mixed mode or online courses for fall and thinking about incorporating library instruction? We have several options available, including both synchronous and asynchronous sessions. We can tailor the sessions to your particular course and research assignments.

If your class is meeting synchronously through Zoom, your librarian can hold a live session for you and your students demonstrating search techniques and highlighting relevant library resources.

If your class is being held asynchronously, we can create recorded sessions or other customized learning objects to include in your Webcourse modules. We also have our Information Literacy Modules, which cover a range of research and citation topics, that can be assigned to your students.

Contact your subject librarian to find out more information about our services and to schedule your library sessions for the coming semester.