Top Ten Library Resources
The mission of the University of Oregon Libraries is to enrich the student learning experience, encourage exploration and research at all levels, and contribute to advancements in access to scholarly resources. Here's a list of the top ten library resources that can help you achieve your academic goals:
Your Library Subject Specialist
The subject specialist librarian works with departmental faculty, staff, and students to understand and support the research and information needs of the academic unit, support instruction, and provide referrals to the many services offered by the UO Libraries. For details, see http://libweb.uoregon.edu/general/services/subspecpub.html.
Center for Educational Technologies
CET (http://libweb.uoregon.edu/cet/) is a one-stop shop for UO faculty who want to use technology more effectively in their teaching. CET provides assistance and referrals for educational technology training, support, and production.
Scholars' Bank
Scholars' Bank (https://scholarsbank.uoregon.edu/dspace/) is an open-access archive for UO research, publications, and supporting materials in digital form. It is an ideal medium for posting publications, reports, research results, poster presentations, and other academic and scholarly materials. Items can be easily searched for quick access.
Media Services
Media Services (http://libweb.uoregon.edu/med_svc/) provides classroom technology and educational video support for teaching and learning, research, public service, and outreach. Services include on-call media support for UO classrooms; technology training for instructors; design, installation, and maintenance of state-of-the-art hardware, software, and presentation systems for more than 100 campus classrooms; videoconferencing and distance education facilities; and video production and distribution systems.
Blackboard
About three-quarters of all UO students are now enrolled in at least one class that has a Blackboard component. Most faculty use it for online posting of syllabi, announcements, handouts, readings, discussions, assignments, and grades. The latest information on Blackboard is available at http://libweb.uoregon.edu/tools/blogs/cet/.
Electronic Classrooms, Learning Commons
Knight Library houses several electronic classrooms (http://libweb.uoregon.edu/instruct/classrooms/calindex.html) where faculty can teach in state-of-the-art technology and media environments. A full-service Learning Commons in Knight Library ensures that students have access to the hardware, software, and physical spaces necessary to conduct collaborative class projects as well as develop professional-quality class presentations.
Document Delivery Services
UO faculty members can now have journal articles scanned and delivered electronically to their desktops (http://libweb.uoregon.edu/borrowing/delivery.html). Any article in a print-only journal owned by the UO is available in digitized form through this service. Faculty members can also have books from the library's general collections delivered to the offices of their campus departments.
Course Reserves
The course reserves program (http://libweb.uoregon.edu/reserves/) provides controlled, ready access to materials required for UO courses. The electronic reserves program (E-reserves) allows course materials to be placed on the web so that students can use them at any time. Access to these materials is restricted to current UO students, faculty, and staff. The library has also implemented a textbook reserves program designed to offer students some alternatives to high textbook prices.
Orbis Cascade Alliance
The Orbis Cascade Alliance, a consortium of 34 Pacific Northwest university and college libraries, is proof of the value of collaboration and resource sharing among academic libraries. The Orbis Cascade Alliance also facilitates sharing of electronic resources through collaborative licensing agreements, maintains the Northwest Digital Archives database, and arranges for borrowing privileges from the Center for Research Libraries.
Digital Collections, Databases
The library maintains a large and growing collection of digital images and documents (http://boundless.uoregon.edu/digcol/) and has licensed the use of major image databases such as ARTStor (http://www.artstor.org/info/), which offers more than 500,000 digitized images for research and instructional use. Many of the materials housed in the library's Special Collections and University Archives now have comprehensive online finding aids, thanks to the library's participation in the development of the Northwest Digital Archives database (http://nwda.wsulibs.wsu.edu/about.html).
Additional Services
Newly launched services and resources are announced regularly on the Library News web pages. An RSS feed is available at http://libweb.uoregon.edu/news/rssinfo.html.