FAQ's

Faculty Services

This page is intended to acquaint faculty with some of the library's services. Take advantage of what we have to offer and offer suggestions for how we can better assist you and your students. Contact your departmental library liaison for more information about library services and collections.

Library Liaison
Library Instruction Services
Schedule a library instruction session to develop your student’s research skills.

Curriculum Support

Integrating Information Competencies Into Course Objectives

Information competencies or information literacy are concerned with those abilities one needs to effectively use the information environment. This requires critical thinking during the process of research in order to locate, evaluate, use, and create information.

A subject liaison librarian can assist you to identify objectives that provide opportunities for your students to develop these competencies, will prepare a specific library session to instruct your students on the necessary competencies required to meet your objectives, and will collaborate with you to develop an assignment that reinforces information competencies.
 

Assignment Troubleshooting

This service is available to all FIU faculty and teaching assistants who develop or are interested in developing course-related assignments requiring library research. The Assignment Troubleshooting Service has several goals:
 
  • Make sure that the information you require from your students can be found in the library or through resources available to the library.
  • Confirm that any sources listed on your assignment can be found in the FIU Libraries or nearby local libraries.
  • Test the library research component of the assignment from a user’s point of view.
  • Provide professional consultation to help customize your library research assignment incorporating print, electronic, and internet resources.

There are two important things to know about academic libraries. Information & Research departments are as dynamic as the information accessed in them
  • No two libraries are alike
  • It's possible that the reference source you know and love and recommend to your students suddenly disappears. Or the title changes. Or we don’t have it at FIU. Or there is an alternative source that may be even better for you and your students.
We can help your assignment to succeed. Instead of being surprised at the last minute, we can review your assignment as it is being developed. We can tell you how successful your assignment will be before the students ever read the syllabus. That’s right. No surprises. No false leads. No unanswerable research questions. No unnecessarily frustrated students. We can help you develop those great assignments that will bring great results. We can help your students to succeed. Many students are intimidated by the library. The FIU Libraries are big, probably a lot bigger than the library they were used to in high school. It’s electronic with over 350 databases to use to search for literature in various disciplines. It’s full of books – books start to look alike when there is over a million of them in one place. And no, it’s not all available on the web but if they plan to search the web, we can guide them to search efficiently and select reliable web resources. For serious students, learning the library is an activity that takes time and energy, and learning the research process is difficult without a lot of help. We want your students to be as successful as they can possibly be. Great assignments can bring great results!

Instruction Types

Library instruction for specific courses and disciplines

Library instruction is available to any course within any academic discipline. Library instruction offered in the context of a discipline-specific course is one of the most effective methods to teach research skills because it has a direct relationship to the research requirements of a course and consequently supplements the course itself. Course-related instruction is taught by a librarian in one or more sessions. These sessions are specifically tailored to your class needs and are most effective when done in conjunction with a specific assignment. In addition, the timing of a session is especially important to student motivation and learning and should coincide with occasions when the students will be working on their research assignments.

When scheduling your library session(s), it is helpful to remember that the more content we cover, the more time we will need to meet these objectives. Please discuss this with the librarian who will be teaching your class. Librarians will work with you to design instruction sessions that cover appropriate topics; possible class objectives:
  • Developing a search strategy
  • Finding and locating books, articles and other information resources
  • Finding web resources
  • Preventing plagiarism
  • Evaluating information resources

ENC 1101 & ENC 1102 Classes

As part of the Libraries' Information Literacy Program, these sessions are provided for all freshman to develop skills to effectively locate and evaluate information. To arrange a class, please fill out the request form.
 

Student self-help options

Tutorials and guides are available for students to learn independently.
 

Instruction Contacts By Campus

At MMC, Green Library
At BBC, Hubert Library
Gricel Dominguez
Resources for Teaching and Learning
Explore these guides and tools to integrate the library resources and services into your teaching and research.  
Course Reserves
Place items on reserve for courses and projects, including electronic reserves and multimedia materials.  
Request Materials for the Library Collection
Use our online form to request an item for the library collection. Faculty Materials Request Form
 
Request an Audiovisual Item for Classroom Use
Use the A/V Request Form to borrow items for in-class viewing. A/V Request Form
Faculty Document Delivery
Faculty Document Delivery is a service whereby Interlibrary Loan staff delivers copies or scans of resources that we own to faculty desktops via the ILLiad system.

To use Document Delivery:
  1. Use the Article Request Form in ILLiad
  2. Fill in the details of the item
  3. The item will be delivered to you through ILLiad
Faculty Pull and Hold
Faculty Pull and Hold service provides a means whereby Interlibrary Loan staff obtains books from FIU stacks and holds them for faculty pick up at the library of their origin.

To use Pull and Hold:
  1. Use the Loan Request Form in ILLiad
  2. Fill in the details of the item
  3. You will get an e-mail when the item is ready
Delivery Types
Desktop Delivery of Articles: Print articles in the Green Library or Biscayne Bay Campus Library will be scanned and delivered electronically to your desktop via your ILLiad account. Pull and Hold Books: Books in the Green Library or Biscayne Bay Campus Library will be pulled and placed on hold the hold shelf at the Green Library, Biscayne Bay Campus Library, Engineering Library Services Center, or FIU at I-75.
  • Electronic Desktop Delivery of articles
  • Pull and Hold service for books
Service Availability
  • This service is available for FIU Faculty only.
  • Requests are processed Monday - Friday, 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.
  • Requests may be submitted at any time.
  • Request processing may be delayed during semester intercessions and holidays.
  • Most requests will be filled within 1-2 business days.
  • If the requested item is unavailable at the Green Library or Biscayne Bay Campus Library, your request will automatically be converted into an Interlibrary Loan request.
Submit a Request
Submit Faculty Document Delivery requests through ILLiad.

Library Services

Browse our library services for the Florida International University Community. These services are subject to modification at the discretion of library administration.