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The University of Tennessee

University Libraries

Frequently Used Tools:




Distance Education

Research Help

Please feel free to contact us for research assistance. You can call any of these numbers:
877-225-0013 (toll-free) (Margaret's desk)
865-974-0087 (Margaret's desk) OR use chat
OR IM (AIM: utklib; Google: utklib; MSN: utklib@gmail.com; Yahoo: utkref)
OR email: eref@utk.edu

We can help you identify relevant articles and books, and then you can request them through ILLiad. If items are not available at our library, we will send the request to interlibrary loan to try to locate a copy for you.



Before You Begin Your Research

Before you begin your library work, it is a good idea to determine your topic and plan for your research.

  1. Write a sentence defining your topic. Is this an in-depth study or an introduction to a subject? Is it comprehensive or covering one aspect of the topic?
  2. How much material will you need?
  3. What kinds of materials are you looking for? Books? Scholarly or popular articles? Research or opinion pieces?
  4. How important is the currency of the information? Are you looking only for recent materials, or should you look for old materials as well? (How far back?)
  5. What subject terms will you use to define your topic?
  6. Are there any limits such as language, age group, or year of publication that you want to impose on your searches?

Books

After defining your topic, you may want to search for books and other materials in the UTK Libraries' Online Catalog. If you would like help in using the catalog, here is a short tutorial you can work with that shows the features of our catalog. Any books you would like to look at can be borrowed according to the UTK Libraries' Circulation Policies.

Books and journal titles are listed in the catalog; you will not find individual articles listed in the catalog. By finding the journal title and seeing which issues we own, you will be able to tell if we have the article here at UTK, or if we will need to request it through interlibrary loan. Interlibrary loan requests always add at least a few days (and often more) to the wait for your materials, so consider if your schedule will permit the wait for an interlibrary loan item to arrive.

Articles

After you have searched the catalog, you may want to search other kinds of databases for articles. Or you may have already determined that the best place to begin your work is by searching the periodical databases.
Begin here: List of Databases

Then find the subject area in which you are interested and choose a particular database to search.

You will also want to see what facilities and research tools your local library has.

When you have identified items that you would like to see, you can visit our document delivery site to make your requests.

The first time you visit the ILLiad site (for all document delivery), you will need to register to set up your account. Be sure to identify yourself as a Distance Education graduate student, faculty, or undergraduate. Also be sure to request Distance Ed delivery if you live outside of Knoxville.

We will send books via FedEx to your home or business, so be sure to leave an address where someone is available during the day to sign for packages. We will scan articles and mount them on a server and let you know when they are ready. (This method is faster than mail!)