We answer a lot of your questions–over 30,000 last year alone.  Students especially like to use Instant Messenger to get quick answers.  Did you know you can IM us and get help from 8 a.m. until midnight? We can help you figure out how to get articles, how to meet the goals of your assignment, or how to request a bestseller on a Kindle.

Here are some of the questions we encounter all the time:

“I’m supposed to get three peer-reviewed articles on my topic–and I don’t really know what that means.”

“How do I cite this web site?”

“I clicked on the FindText button, but I still don’t get to the article. Why’s that?”

Here are some recent hardballs:

“I need to access the various GIS layers on the NC Art Museum property… including building footprints, topography, vegetation, paths, roadways, water, utilities, floodplain, soil type…”

“I’m trying to find a way to set up an automated feed of science and technology news from Norway–in English–for media and peer reviewed research…”

“I need a business or economics data set with 50 observations, 6 variables–1 independent and 4 dependent…”

And here are three favorites from the last few months:

“I’m looking for stuff on the history of the early piracy laws circa 1600s.”

“I need articles on cats as an invasive species, in the U.S.”

“How do I find the economic impact of replacing the tobacco industry with hemp agriculture in North Carolina?”

So go ahead, Ask Us!

Media Contact:
David Hiscoe, NCSU Libraries,  (919) 513-3425

For decades the research and academic libraries across the University of North Carolina system have leveraged their collections and those of other research libraries in the region to reduce costs and make the greatest range of materials available to faculty and students. Now, with one easy system on the Web, patrons can search the library catalogs of all seventeen schools in the UNC system and have materials they need delivered in a matter of days.

“UNC Library Express” improves the discoverability of library materials available across the state, creating a virtual library throughout the UNC system and making better use of our universities’ resources by making them easy to find and to obtain.

Students, faculty, and staff at UNC institutions can link to UNC Library Express through their online catalog and choose from resources available across the UNC system (http://www.lib.ncsu.edu/catalog). Books and other items are then delivered by UPS Ground service, usually within two days of the request. The end result: UNC Library Express increases the amount and variety of books and other resources available to all members of the UNC community, whether they are engaged in teaching and learning on campus or through distance education.

UNC Library Express supports the ongoing University of North Carolina Tomorrow initiative, which calls for addressing constituents’ needs from a system perspective, maximizing resources and efficiency, and avoiding unnecessary duplication. The wealth of information that can be tapped from the seventeen libraries’ combined collections will facilitate achievements in all of the targeted areas of that initiative, including improvement of public education, economic transformation, health, environment, and outreach and engagement. By increasing statewide access to critical educational and research materials, UNC Library Express also meets several of the key goals laid out in the 2006 President’s Advisory Committee on Efficiency and Effectiveness (PACE) report.