Research Basics

Welcome to the Chambers Library!  This guide will help you familiarize yourself with the research process and the library's resources and services.  If you have any questions, don't hesitate to contact us for help.

Quick Links:

• Library Hours
• Library Help
• Study Rooms - available on a first-come-first-serve basis
• Innovation Studio

Central Search is a discovery tool and it's a way to quickly and easily discover credible sources. These include books, articles, videos, and more. You want to start by entering your topic keywords, or you can put in something more specific such as an author or a title. Before you then begin, you may want to log into your library account with your UConnect username and password. This way, you can save records, request items, or see what you have checked out. When you click search, you're going to get thousands of results. You may want to refine your results a little bit. You can do that a couple of ways. You can use this drop down menu to limit by type of items such as books or articles, and then you can limit even further such as things in the main collection or ebooks or things like that. You can also come over here to the left hand side of the screen and limit even further. For example, you may just be looking for articles from peer reviewed journals from a specific time frame from the last five years or something like that. You can do that here. So items that are in print will be indicated the location and the call number. If you're logged into your library account, then you can request these items. We will pull them from the shelf and they will be waiting for you at the information desk. Items that are electronic are indicated with this online access in green. If you click on the title, this will give you the record. To view the item, look in the View Online section, and there will be a link to the database. If you're off campus, you will be prompted to authenticate yourself with your you Uconnect username or password. The online record also has some other helpful features, such as a way to link to the record or email. We also have a citation generator here with the major styles. You always want to double check these before you use these for accuracy. To return to your results, just click on the X icon. If at any point you need help with searching or you're having trouble, you can always reach out for help. We're here to help.