Loyola University Chicago

Department of Philosophy

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Cudahy Library Offers Loyola’s Students and Faculty Space for Academic Support

Cudahy Library Offers Loyola’s Students and Faculty Space for Academic Support

Loyola University’s Elizabeth M. Cudahy Library, home to the university’s extensive collection of books and periodicals, offers students a myriad of resources and learning opportunities. The library not only holds the university's fine arts, humanities, science and social sciences collections but also houses the University Archives and government document depository collections. The Cudahy physical collections comprise of more than 900,000 volumes and 3,200 periodical subscriptions; online resources include hundreds of research databases, thousands of e-books, and over 35,000 journal titles.

A wonderful resource for students, faculty, and staff alike, Cudahy library offers the Loyola University community opportunities to further both academic and personal learning endeavors. In the following interview, Jane Currie, Reference Librarian and Subject Specialist for the Philosophy Department at Cudahy Library, discusses how Philosophy students can take advantage of the many resources that Cudahy has to offer as well as what she enjoys most about the library.

1. How can Philosophy students use the library as a resource while they are studying at Loyola?

The library’s resources are valuable even when a class does not require a research project.  One example is our print and online reference collection.  These sources allow philosophy students to become better informed about a topic without immersing themselves in it.  Reference sources such as The Oxford Companion to Consciousness or the International Encyclopedia of Ethics (both available online) provide brief entries that can help students better understand the lectures, discussions, and assigned readings in a class.  More information about online reference sources for philosophy may be found in the Research Guide at http://libguides.luc.edu/philosophy.  When a research project is assigned, it is essential to access the research databases to which the library subscribes (Philosopher’s Index, for example) and the library’s book collection.  We hope the library is also valuable as a space for study and reflection, a source for relaxed reading in the popular reading collection with current newspapers and magazines, and a place for entertainment thanks to our DVDs and streaming video collections.[CM1] 

2. With the wide array of digital content (periodicals, texts, DVDs, etc.) available online, students and faculty are now heavily using these digital resources more and more for their academic endeavors.  How does technology affect the way that students use the library and its resources?

Technology means that students no longer need to visit the library’s facilities in order to use the library.  It is possible to conduct searches and access an enormous number of books and journal articles from any location.  This has been a fundamental shift in how students interact with their campus library and its librarians.

 3. Out of all of the different resources that the library has to offer, what is an underutilized resource that you would recommend students trying?

Students can easily miss our digital text collections.  Some highlights for philosophy students include the Loeb Classical Library, Past Masters (which includes the works of Aristotle and Aquinas, among others), and Cambridge Companions to philosophers such as Augustine and Descartes.  Text collections of particular relevance to philosophy students are arranged by time period on a page in the Research Guide found athttp://libguides.luc.edu/c.php?g=49724&p=320440.

 4. Cudahy Library often hosts workshops and events for students and faculty members. Are there any upcoming events that the library is hosting that Philosophy students may be interested in?

A diverse set of workshops are being held this semester, with offerings in the IC and online.  Topics, descriptions, and the schedule are athttp://libraries.luc.edu/classes/calendar.  The Friends of the Library Speaker Series gets underway on October 20thwith a presentation titled “Civil War Chicago.’  More information is at http://blogs.lib.luc.edu/speakerseries/.  The Wellness Center’s therapy dog, Tivo, visits the Information Commons every Tuesday afternoon, usually about 3:00, and yoga classes are held on Wednesday nights at 10:00. 

 5. Finally, what do you personally enjoy most about working at Cudahy Library?  

I enjoy the individual interactions I’m able to have with students, especially when the result is something being simplified for them that previously had seemed overwhelming or impossible.  Finding an evasive source is terrifically rewarding, as is pointing out one of the time-saving tools, organizational aids, or helpful features of a resource.  Any small thing that I can do to make a researcher’s endeavors more successful makes me happy.