Welcome to the Guide for PLS 399
This guide should give you some very basic info about how to get started using the tools you need. To get started using this guide, click on the tabs. The tabs will help you search databases to find articles, search for books relevant to your area of study, get help with your citations and find background information for your research topic.
This guide is just a starting point, however. Please do explore the Library website on your own, and make sure to ask me questions if you need help. I'm happy to talk to you online, by phone, or even in person if you'd like. If you can't reach me, you can also ask ANY other librarian for help. Email, IM, phone, or in person help is available.
I am not the only librarian available to help! If you are anywhere near the downtown or Schaumburg campuses, stop by the library. Both are staffed with many trained, friendly librarians who can help with all kinds of research questions. You can also call the Downtown or Schaumburg Reference Desk to get help. The number downtown is 312-341-3644 (downtown hours). The number in Schaumburg is 847-619-7980 (Schaumburg hours).
There are two different book catalogs, the Roosevelt University catalog and the I-Share catalog. The I-Share catalog contains books from all university libraries in Illinois. You are able to request these, but you will need an I-Share account in order to do so.
Here is a link that will enable you to set up your account:
https://vufind.carli.illinois.edu/all/vf/MyResearch/Account?followup=%2Fall%2Fvf%2FMyResearch%2FHome
Whenever you want to request a book from another school, you will need to login to your I-Share account.
Also: If you live closer to Schaumburg, but you see that the book that you want is housed at the Chicago campus, you can request that it be sent to Schaumburg. (The same exists if you want a Schaumburg title transferred to Chicago for you to pick up.) We will send an email to your RU Email account when the book arrives.
Roosevelt owns access to thousands of journal articles, but we do not own everything. However, if you would like an article that we do not own, we can get it for you quite easily. In order to place these requests, you will need to set up an ILLIAD account. Here is a link to set up this account:
https://roosevelt.illiad.oclc.org/illiad/FirstTime.html
You must use your RU email address in order to set up your account.
When we receive the article, we will email it to your RU Email account.
