News & Blog

Do you wish there was a way you and your students could chat with, text, or email your research questions to a librarian? Well, look no further. Your friendly UCF Librarians and reference staff are here to help through our Ask Us service.

Ask Us staff are experienced in handling all sorts of questions, like how to start researching a topic, finding peer-reviewed articles, finding the full text of an article, and much more. If a student needs more in depth help with a research paper, then our Ask Us staff will refer them to their Subject Librarian. The current hours for our live chat, text, and email service are Monday through Thursday from 9am to 9pm, Friday from 9am to 5pm, and Saturday from 1pm to 5pm; you can text your questions to 407-378-3767.

Need help after hours? No problem. When our UCF chat is closed, you can chat with a librarian until midnight Sunday through Thursday using Florida’s Ask a Librarian Service. So be sure to take advantage of this quick and easy service and recommend it to your students!

Want details about the presidential candidates and upcoming elections? Check out our Elections and Florida Elections guides, the Library of Congress Election Stats guide, or try Google’s recently updated search option, provided in conjunction with the Center for Responsive Politics, to see more about presidential elections and campaign finance.

Find more election/campaign resources at the following sites – or ask your librarian …

• Campaign Finance Disclosure Portal
• Elections: Fact Checking
• Open Secrets
• Opinion Polls
• Public Agenda
• Supervisor of Elections, Orange County, FL

(Image used above is “Creative Commons Vote image” by Theresa Thompson is licensed under CC BY 2.0)

New Books shelf on 2nd floor

Browse our NEW BOOKS shelf in the Knowledge Commons for some recreational reading over Spring Break.  The bookcase on your left as you approach the Research and Information Desk is devoted to showcasing our latest academic book purchases.  Come by or check the website to see what we have, and feel free to take as many as you like–everything on display here is available for immediate check out: just take your selections to the circulation desk.

***NEW*** Now you can peruse the New Books Display website to read synopses of each book on display!  Titles link directly to our online catalog so you can find similar titles and check availability before your visit.

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.

HathiTrust Digital Library has long been known as an outstanding resource for obtaining digitized works that are in the Public Domain, but did you know they also offer special access to in-copyright publications for their partner institutions?

The UCF Libraries in cooperation with HathiTrust is pleased to offer accessible publications to our patrons with print disabilities.  Upon searching the Online Catalog (aka the Books/Catalog tab), “Accessible Resources  ” will appear as an option under Subcollection in the left column. Click on it to narrow your results to a subset of accessible HathiTrust titles, any of which may be requested for electronic delivery by clicking the ADA icon.  Once you’ve emailed yourself the citation(s), copy/paste the information into UCF’s request form at https://guides.ucf.edu/accessibility/hathitrust (Due to copyright restrictions, this service is solely available to students who have been verified through UCF’s Student Accessibility Services.)