Alkek Library News

Wikipedia's Co-Founder Calls for Better Information Literacy

Interesting podcast with the Co-Founder of Wikipedia, Jimmy Wales from the Chronicle of Higher Education's Tech Therapy.  Wales discusses Wikipedia's popularity among students and  ways faculty have incorporated Wikipedia into the classroom (both good and bad).

Click Here to hear the full recording.

New to campus and Alkek Library? We have a lot of ways to help you find your way around.

If you haven't been to our library yet, we welcome you and hope you will come by for a visit. We have several ways to help you find your way around and help answer your questions.  First, at the beginning of each semester, we offer short walking tours of the library. Just meet at the Reference Desk on the 2nd floor as you enter the main lobby after checking the schedule.  We also have various drop-in sessions on using RefWorks, an online resource for bibliographic management. These are held in our classroom 101, downstairs from the main lobby. Our schedule is updated periodically, so check back often for other classes.

You can also meet privately with a librarian regarding your research.  We have an online form available for you to submit.  A Reference Librarian will contact you to set a mutually agreeable day and time.  Please allow several days for this appointment.

If you prefer to tour Alkek Library from the comfort of your home or dorm room, we have an online tutorial as well as still photos and mp3 audio tours for you to enjoy at your leisure.

And of course, you can visit in person at the Reference Desk, call us at 245-2686 or get online help at our Ask-A-Librarianl.  Welcome to Texas State University - San Marcos and welcome to Alkek Library.

Happy New Year! Learn how to use Refworks before you start your research papers.

First, I should introduce myself. My name is Tara Spies and I am the newest addition to the Alkek Library Information Literacy Instruction Team. I am a Reference/Instruction Librarian and my subject specialties are art/design, communication studies, and technology. If you have any questions about research in those areas you can contact me at ts20@txstate.edu or want to request an instruction class in any of these areas with me please don't hesitate to do so.

It is the beginning of the spring semester so it is probably a good time to learn about new and improved research tools before your research gets underway. If you don't already know about Refworks, you will wish you had once you know that it is a online citation and bibliography tool that you can use to help you organize and format your citations/references for your research papers in whatever writing style you are supposed to use (APA, MLA, etc.). You can create a free account and familiarize yourself with some of its basic features. You can use their tutorial or attend one of our upcoming workshops on how to use Refworks. Once you get the hang of it you will see what a helpful tool Refworks can be for citing sources in your paper and for your reference/bibliography page that you put at the end of it.

Refworks just released a new version of Write-and-Cite that will let you download and use it while offline. The online version is still available for when it is more convenient for you. You can read about more new enhancements to Refworks in their January 2008 Release Notes

Good luck with your spring semester!