Digital Commons - Information and Tools

 

Not Your Parents' Library Video

DeeAnn Allison, University of Nebraska-Lincoln

Document Type Article

This video was prepared for National Library Week 2007 and highlights how things have changed in Libraries.

The PDF file in which this video is 65 Mbytes, so download time will be proportionately long, depending on connection speed.

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Abstract

A video with Buffy, a student at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln shows her parents how to do research the "NU" way. Using a computer in her dorm room she is able to search the catalog to find books, renew books, and save search preferences so she can repeat them without having to re-enter the searches later. She also shows her parents how she saves time writing papers by finding articles using a new tool that searches across many databases at the same time and then connects to the full article, which she reads on her computer. She also demonstrates how she can automatically save the references in a database that manages her citations for importing into her papers. She explains to her parents how she can chat with a librarian anytime over the web and order materials through interlibrary loan all without leaving her dorm room. Finally, they take a trip to the library where they find equipment and help to produce videos for Buffy's classroom presentation. The parents are amazed at how things have changed since they were in college. This video was produced by the Computing Operations & Research Services of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries for National Library Week in 2007. It stars Joan Barnes, Alicia Dostal, Randal Fulkerson, Dwight Leggott, and Reed Rawhouser, actual staff and students at UNL.