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Why the Library?
- Not all information is online.
Billions of scholarly works were created and published in print before (and since) the dawn of the Internet search engine and the crowdsourced encyclopedia. Academic libraries collect scholarly works in all formats to serve our users' needs.
- Not all information is free.
As the adage says: You get what you pay for. Libraries spend lots of money collecting and preserving access to scholarly works appropriate for the research needs of our primary users--undergraduates, graduate students, and faculty. Generally, the more work and expertise that goes into creating a publication, the more costly it is.
- Open access is great, but we're still the experts at collecting and organizing information (in all formats).
There is an open-access movement to make scholarly works available to everyone, but libraries still facilitate organized access to those sources through our research databases. Subject-specific databases, like Criminal Justice Abstracts or Women's Studies International, provide a portal for finding the best scholarly works in a given field. In addition, each of these databases have "tagged" articles with terms identifying the main concepts (these are usually called "subject terms") to help you identify articles on your topic.
- We're service oriented.
The librarians at Beaver campus library know our collections, know your assignments, and want to help you succeed at Penn State. All you need to do is ask!