News & Blog

Welcome to the fourth installment of Diamond’s Hidden Gems, a blog series in which I introduce you to the University of Central Florida’s library services that you may not have known about!

Library Tips & Tricks

To new or casual users, the UCF library site can be overwhelming or convoluted, making it difficult to search for materials. We have several online resources to help with this, including video guides and virtual services, but this blog post will provide you with specific tips and tricks to clarify search results and more.

There are also various plug-ins and extensions that can help you with your academic research, something particularly helpful for off-campus students.

How to get better results from UCF Libraries

• Tip #1: Select a “search scope”
• Tip #2: Select what type of content you are searching for
• Tip #3: Use the sidebar filters
• Tip #4: Find search parameters
• Tip #5: Virtually browse
• Tip #6: “Ask A Librarian”

For full details on how to take full advantage of these tips, click on my full tutorial!

Welcome to the third installment of Diamond’s Hidden Gems, a blog series in which I introduce you to the University of Central Florida’s library services that you may not have known about!

Whether you’re visiting the John C. Hitt library or simply walking through, you’ve probably noticed the latest exhibit on the art wall, as well as several exhibit cases. This display depicts the Lunar New Year, also known as the Chinese New Year exhibit, and will be up until the end of January!

To join the festivities, UCF Library has curated a Chinese New Year exhibit, displaying information about the celebration, customs and traditions, Chinese astrology, and art pieces!

As you walk by the art wall, take a second to interact with the graphics! The posters ask you to stick a dot under your Chinese astrology sign, corresponding to the year you were born.

The UCF Library also had a “Make your own Chinese New Year lantern” on Friday, January 20, 2023, from 10 a.m. to noon. During this event, we came together to ring in the Chinese New Year by making decorative paper lanterns!

Visit STARS Diamond’s Hidden Gems – Lunar New Year to read the description of the festival and how UCF Library intends to celebrate with students!

Welcome to the second installment of Diamond’s Hidden Gems, a blog series in which I introduce you to the University of Central Florida’s library services that you may not have known about!

The cost of textbooks and course materials is a significant but often overlooked barrier to affording a degree. Being able to afford your textbook could be the difference between dropping a course and taking as many as possible. UCF’s Textbook Affordability Initiative is designed to minimize the cost of course materials for students while maintaining quality and respecting academic freedom.

There’s just one problem: few of us even know this program exists. Below, I give you everything you need to know to find out what free textbooks are available to you!

Continuing on our streak of making college materials cheaper and easier to access, the textbook affordability initiative helps students gain access to both hard-copy materials and eTextbooks. Using this program, you can often save yourself the effort of hunting down high-priced materials.

Simply fill out known information in the eTextbook portal or a one-page request, and you’ve increased your chances of gaining free and legal access to your course’s required material.

I had the opportunity to speak to Lily Dubach, UCF’s Textbook Affordability Librarian, and she shared with me a few pointers that make selecting classes to enroll in much easier. You can use this method to identify whether your course has a costly required material before you’ve even enrolled!

If you’d like to know how to do this, and check out my step-by-step guide that shows you exactly how to locate or request the materials you need!