Being into academics, books and you would be inseparable and you would need them at various times during the course of your PhD. The person who can be of best help to you in the need is the academic librarian of your university. It is hence essential to befriend her. If you still have your doubts over what I told you above, find here five ways in which your librarian can be of help to you:
- They dig books/information for you: Academic librarians love to do this and they are very good at this as well. They would help to source such material for you which you may find very difficult to arrange yourself. If not all this, they surely can guide you towards doing this effectively.
- Give them time and they save yours: Librarians can help you purchase books, order material from sources they already know of. If you consider their human limitations and value their efforts you would give them time and that would save a lot of your time.
- Even little information may be enough for them: An academic librarian is a master of his field and for finding the name of that one author or paper, you may have to dig into sources for hours all together, However, even with some brief cues, the librarian may be able to do it even less than half the time and half the frustration caused to you.
- They can guide you from the very start: In the beginning of your course, you may not have too much help in the university and you may feel little lost. It isn’t even possible to ask you supervisor about small little details. However, you wouldn’t know that you can always ask your librarian from the very beginning to help you to keep a record of your bibliography. What are the different software in your library? How can you use those software for different purpose such as literature searching or maintaining bibliography etc.?
You can take their help throughout the tenure of your course: From the beginning till the end you would have work at the end of library. From when you start you course and till your VIVA is done the library will be the best place to find you so why not make the best use of the knowledge, expertise and experience of the librarian for making your life easier.
