The librarian is: BLOGGING | Journalism Library, Columbia University

Welcome to the Graduate School of Journalism, and to Columbia University Libraries. Here are some links for exploring the resources that will help you in RWI.

The Columbia Libraries’ website is your portal to information about the many libraries available at Columbia, as well as your link into thousands of electronic sources of information (newspapers, magazines, scholarly journals, photographs, and more) - information which you won’t necessarily find on Google. The Libraries’ catalog, CLIO, helps you to locate both print and online materials at Columbia.

In terms of getting started on your beat reporting, searching for past news stories on your beat can be accomplished using either LexisNexis or Factiva (access restricted to current Columbia affiliates). If you’d like to dig deeper, ProQuest Historical Newspapers (access restricted to current Columbia affiliates) contains the full text of the New York Times back to 1851! This means you can find out what was happening in your beat neighborhood back then. Or, you can type in a street address and see what interesting events may have taken place there.

For other info on New York City and its neighborhoods, check out the guide, Scoping Out Your Beat. It includes links to a number of important websites with in-depth coverage of relevant social and cultural issues.

Graduating in May, 2006? Congratulations!

You may be wondering what will become of your access to Columbia’s excellent electronic resources once you are no longer a student. This blog post will give you the definitive answers on the topic - accept no conflicting information!

Part I: Good News and Bad News

The Good News: Upon graduation, there is a “grace period” of approximately three months during which you continue to have access to the databases you know and love (Factiva, LexisNexis, etc.) via the same channels as before - you connect via the library’s link to them, type in your Columbia UNI and password, and you’re in. During this grace period, you may also continue to check books out of Columbia libraries.

The Bad News: You will NOT receive a warning at the end of the grace period - your access simply expires. Library staff are not notified of the exact date on which the grace period ends, so you need to remain aware that, come August or September, you can no longer count on access to these resources.

How to tell when you have been cut off? Simple! Once the grace period ends, your UNI and password will no longer work to log you in to the databases you had been using.

Part II: Alumni Access to Columbia Libraries

Once you have graduated from Columbia, you enjoy alumni library privileges. You are eligible for an alumni ID card, which is good for lifetime access to all of Columbia’s libraries (remember, when you’re on campus, you have access to databases!), and you have electronic access to a selection of databases that Columbia licenses specifically for alumni use. Find out about all this on the Alumni & Friends Portal of the Libraries’ website.

Part III: Can I Still Ask Questions?

Yes, I am always happy to answer research questions from alumni (you may want to identify yourself as such when you send me an email), and will be happy to suggest whatever sources I can to which you have access (since, as I mentioned above, after the grace period ends, you will not be able to access databases). But: I cannot do research for you, or email you materials from Columbia’s licensed databases.