Students enrolled in EngiNet TM distance education courses through the University at Buffalo are entitled to use UB Libraries resources and services for research and coursework. You can come directly to the Libraries to retrieve books, copy articles, search databases, access course reserve readings, or request interlibrary loans. You can also obtain many of these resources and services online from your home or office by following the instructions in this guide.

Connecting from Off-Campus

The UB Libraries have adopted World Wide Web technologies and tools to provide you with convenient electronic access to a wide range of library resources and services. You can connect to our website via the Internet at http://ublib.buffalo.edu/libraries. For help with making the connection from off-campus, consult our guide Remote Access to Library' Resources. To take full advantage of the UB Libraries' resources, you will need a UBITName account.

Electronic Resources for Research

The best place to start when doing online research in engineering are the engineering resources by subject pages, which list and link to online databases, journals, and books.

• Engineering - Chemical
• Engineering - Civil
• Engineering - Electrical
• Engineering - Environmental
• Engineering - Industrial
• Engineering - Mechanical

To link to the full complement of research databases that the University at Buffalo Libraries provides access to, consult the Resources by Subject main page at http://ublib.buffalo.edu/libraries/e-resources/subject.html.

Electronic Course Reserves

The reserve readings for your course may be available online via the UB Libraries Course Reserves System. For instructions on how to access journal articles and book chapters placed on reserve by your instructor, you'll want to first consult Instructions for Remote Users of Online UB Course Reserve Materials, which provides important information on hardware and software requirements as well as printing and downloading issues. A second guide, Finding Course Reserve Materials, takes you through the steps of determining what is on reserve for your course and whether it is available online for you to view and print out in its entirety at your computer.

For EngiNet instructors who wish to place articles online for their students' easy access, see Course Reserve Guidelines for Instructors.

Retrieving Books from Our Collections

We encourage you to first check out our various electronic book services through the following databases:

• Knovel E-Books
  http://ublib.buffalo.edu/libraries/e-resources/knovel.html
  Full-text access to over 600 science and engineering books. Many of the books are enhanced with interactive tables and graphs.
• ENGnetBASE http://ublib.buffalo.edu/libraries/e-resources/ENGnetBASE.html
  Online collection of several hundred engineering books published by CRC Press.

You can also search our catalog BISON to expand your search for books in our collections. The catalog record for a book will tell you which library at UB owns the book, the book's call number, and whether or not the book is currently checked out to someone.

We cannot send you books in the mail, so to retrieve these from our collections you must come to campus. Your UBCard, described above, is also your library card and you must present it to check out books. It is not enough to know your 14-digit library number. You must be able to present your UBCard at the circulation desk to charge out books.

To make retrieving books easier for you, if the book you need is marked in our online catalog as currently "checked out" to another person, you can place a recall on it online in BISON. Then, when the book is returned and is available for your use, the University Libraries will send you a notification letter and you can come to campus to charge it out.

Although you must come to campus to pick up your books, you may renew them online up to three times--as long as the book you're renewing is not overdue and no one else has placed a recall on it. To renew your books online, log-on to BISON and use My Library Card feature.

It may be there is another library near you that has the book you need. UB students can use the libraries of other SUNY schools including the CUNY schools in New York City, or your local public library might have the book you need. To use other SUNY system libraries, you must have a UBCard. Before visiting another library, we recommend that you first check to see if the book you need is there by searching that library's catalog. Most libraries' catalogs are available online. To connect to the catalogs of other libraries, here are a few helpful links:

• Western & Central New York / Southern Ontario Libraries
• Other SUNY Libraries Catalogs (including the catalogs of Binghamton, Albany, and Stony Brook).
• LibDex - Library Catalogs Worldwide

Online Reference

We encourage you to e-mail us your reference questions by sending them to askasl@buffalo.edu and we will get back to you with an answer within 24 hours, Monday through Friday.

Or log-on to the University Libraries' Instant Librarian for real-time reference assistance online. Instant Librarian reference hours vary but include evening and weekend hours.

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