Library Skills Requirement

This is a General Education requirement for undergraduate students who enrolled at UB prior to Fall 2016. If your first term of matriculation is fall 2016 or later do not need to fulfill this requirement.

To fulfill this requirement you will book a 30 minute appointment with Cynthia Tysick, Associate Librarian, who will walk you through finding quality resources for your coursework. The session will be held online through MS Teams and will not require any special downloaded software. Please check your junk email folder if you do not receive a confirmation and meeting link.

Schedule an Appointment

The Library Skills Learning Outcomes

After completing the requirement students will be able to:

…formulate a topic that is neither too narrow nor too broad in order to adequately address that topic in an undergraduate-level research paper.
…construct a search strategy in order to effectively search library databases.
…locate both print and electronic books via searching by keyword, title and author in order to retrieve books that are relevant to their research topic.
…identify Library of Congress subject headings in order to locate additional material relevant to their research topic.
…navigate the Library of Congress call number system in order to locate print books and other materials in the Libraries.
…locate library databases in order to retrieve relevant, scholarly articles within a particular discipline.
…locate a particular journal title in print or online in order to retrieve specific articles.
…evaluate different types of periodicals in order to retrieve appropriate articles for a given assignment.
…implement Google Advanced Search techniques in order to efficiently and productively search the free web.
…evaluate free web sites in order to retrieve credible, updated information from trustworthy sources.
…recognize the difference between subscription databases and the free web in order to consult appropriate sources for a given assignment.
…recognize the library website as a place to find information about library services.
…identify the meaning of academic integrity in order to avoid plagiarism.
…identify a specific style of citation in order to correctly and appropriately give credit to consulted sources.