Welcome to the Blough-Weis Library and to the world of academic research!

College-level research can be challenging and, initially, intimidating. You may read the Art of Memory and wonder what "Patterns" means. Or, in your Core Perspectives class your professor may require a paper about Elvis and race. And you may be required to include sources you've never heard of, e.g., primary documents, scholarly journals.

This website and the Blough-Weis Library homepage http://www.susqu.edu/library were created by librarians to introduce you to the skills needed to be effective and efficient researchers. Each segment focuses on one reading in the Art of Memory. It contains: a biographical sketch of the author, links to articles and websites which address the work and issues presented in the work, and a library tip. The library tips use the readings as examples while introducing :

• primary & secondary sources (Zinn)

• criteria for evaluating websites (Satrapi)

• how to choose the best database for a topic (Sacks)

• the elements of a citation (Stoddard)

• correct citation format (Gawande)

• locating full-text (Beah)

• the Blough-Weis Library catalog (Lowell)

• tips for narrowing a topic (Franzen)

• literary criticism (Proust)

• popular & scholarly journals (Foer)

• search terms (Akutagawa)

• Boolean searching (Bertrand)

• Interlibrary loan (Kammen)

Librarians are available for more than 70 hours a week, including nights and weekends, and in person, by phone, and by e-mail. Their job is to help you find the information you need; you job is to talk to them!

We look forward to meeting and working with you!