Dear Puget Sound Faculty:
The entire Collins Library team is here to support your teaching and to facilitate student learning! The library is wide open in terms of the remote services and online resources it offers. We are designed for online services and support and our library staff continue to provide a full range of services including online research consultations, teaching, and 24/7 reference chat. Our dedicated staff have shown us that the Library is much more than a wonderful space – it is a center of knowledge and scholarship, accessible anywhere and anyplace.This page outlines the major ways we can support you; please check back frequently as we update and expand our services. If you have questions that aren't addressed here, please feel free to contact me or connect with your liaison librarian.
Sincerely,
Jane Carlin, Library Director
Most recent update: August 25, 2020
Contact your liaison librarian with any questions about accessing or acquiring digital materials!
Online Resources 24/7: Collins Library provides access to hundreds of thousands of online articles, books, and reference resources. Electronic resources can be accessed via Primo and our nearly 300 databases, with guidance provided through our many subject and course research guides.
Tip for both faculty and students: Remember to always go through the library's web site! You will be prompted for your Puget Sound username and password to gain access. Read more about Off Campus Access.
Streaming Media: Collins Library subscribes to several streaming media platforms and also works with Media Services (part of Technology Services) to stream library-owned DVDs when needed. Please consult the extensive Streaming Media guide and don't hesitate to contact your liaison librarian with any questions about access.
Scan for Canvas (partial replacement for print reserves): For many materials that are available in the Collins print collection, we can scan them and make the PDFs available to you to post on your Canvas course site. Please see the Scan for Canvas guide to access the request form.
Expanded Local Access to Print Collections: If you are local, you can request materials from the Collins print collection directly in Primo, instead of needing to email your liaison librarian, and there are expanded pickup times. This service is available to the entire Puget Sound community (faculty, staff, students) who are able to come to the library to pick up their items.
Digitization Requests via Primo (coming soon): Collins Library is anticipating being able to offer a digitization service for materials such as articles and chapters/essays within books to increase student access to research resources that are part of the print collection and not otherwise available electronically.
Archives & Special Collections: Digitized collections from A&SC, including the student newspaper, The Trail, are available. Please contact archives@pugetsound.edu to inquire about access to materials through digitization requests.
SUMMIT: Updated: SUMMIT service is resuming on Thursday, August 27 for local users. Three-quarters of SUMMIT libraries have resumed service, but this does not include the University of Washington.
Interlibrary Loan: Materials that can be requested as usual through interlibrary loan include anything that can be delivered electronically: articles and chapters/essays within books. Currently, requests for print books cannot be processed due to limited access to print collections at so many libraries throughout the country.
Open Educational Resources: Ebooks and other open educational resources can help contain costs for our students. If you are interested in finding some additional no cost materials to replace or expand your electronic readings for class, contact your liaison librarian, or Ben Tucker, in his role in the newly created position of Digital Services & Outreach Librarian.
Your liaison librarians are eager to continue supporting you and your students in teaching and learning! Please contact us to explore the options below, or to discuss possibilities not listed here!
Assignment Design: We want students to continue to have multiple opportunities to learn and practice research skills across the disciplines. In a remote instruction environment, it's especially important to ensure that students have access to sufficient research materials in order to succeed with an assignment. Your liaison librarian can work with you to identify or curate course-specific collections; create or update a library research page for your courses; and/or suggest specific avenues or methods of exploration that will emphasize critical thinking in research.
Course-integrated library instruction: Just as you will be delivering instruction remotely, so, too, will the liaison librarians! Last spring we experimented with synchronous and asynchronous models (and oftentimes a mix of the two). We encourage you to record library sessions for students who may have missed, or want to review, the content of the session. (We heard from faculty last spring that some students reported really liking the option of being able to go back and view segments of a library class.)
Archives & Special Collections: A small set of lesson plans, making use of digitized A&SC materials, is available. Please contact your liaison librarian and/or archives@pugetsound.edu to inquire.
Research and Reference Services for Your Students: Collins librarians continue to offer multiple online ways to get help at any stage of the research process, including making individual appointments. Our peer research advisors, after a period of training, will be available by mid-September. Refer your students to https://library.pugetsound.edu/help for the full array of ways to get help.
Consider the Moment:
Varied student experiences: It is always safest to not make assumptions about what kinds of experiences with or opportunities for research our students may have had in high school, but it seems even more prudent now given the disrupted nature of the previous spring for graduating high school seniors. In addition to providing instruction to full classes, liaison librarians are highly skilled at meeting individual students where they are, determining what they already know how to do, and identifying specifically where they need help. (We call it the reference interview.) In addition, remember to point students to the research guidance provided in Sound Writing. Another resource is Research Basics: An Open Academic Research Skills online course that is aimed at high school juniors and seniors and first-year students; it offers a set of three self-paced online modules, with practice quizzes, which might be useful to students prior to a session with your liaison librarian.
Critical reasoning in an online environment: How do disinformation and misinformation spread online? Stanford's Civic Online Reasoning curriculum offers a set of modules that explains, models, and invites practice with critically evaluating online sources. Another online resource is Michael Caulfield's Web Literacy for Student Fact Checkers. Consider inviting your liaison librarian to collaborate on a session and/or assignment that builds on these resources.
Algorithmic bias: How do search engines and aspects of library classification systems perpetuate racism? Consider introducing students to the work of Dr. Safiya Noble, author of Algorithms of Oppression. Dr. Noble has also curated a reading list on the topic.
This guide is maintained by Peggy Burge, Associate Director for Public Services, with contributions from the entire Collins Library team.