Open Educational Resources tab

The Open Educational Resources tab has just that—resources that are free and open to the public.

These are available in two ways—gratis and libre.

Gratis is when the research is made available for people to read without paying for it, however they cannot make copies or modify it.

Libre does the same thing, but it gives more rights like creative commons license and people are able to use the work as well as read it.

If you go into the tab and click on the link “Open Educational Resources” you will find similar definitions as above and then listed on the left hand side of the page are 30 different open access resources. These range through all sorts of subjects. Feel free to poke around in them!

Have any questions? Ask Us!! 

--Michelle Joy, Distance Learning Librarian 

Google Scholar vs. Academic Databases

If you have the question “Why can’t I just use Google Scholar?” the answer is “You can, however…” Google Scholar can be very handy. It’s got a layout you’re familiar with, you don’t have to log in, it usually gives you access to part of most things it pulls up.

 Academic Databases make you sign in, so many of them look so different you spend half the time trying to figure out how to search it, and if you forget to mark the full text box you can wind up only getting abstracts.

 So why are Academic Databases better for your research?

Google Scholar almost always makes you pay for full text. The library pays for you to have access to many thousands of articles in the academic databases so you don’t have to, and there are also tons of FREE full text articles.

 Academic databases pull articles and other content from far more sources than Google Scholar does and you can filter them by various different factors, like if it’s been peer reviewed.

Want to read more about this? Here is an article you can find in our databases

Graduate Faculty Reception

On May 3rd, 2016 the Cannon Memorial Library hosted a Graduate Faculty Reception to help faculty know what all the library could offer. Some faculty have their students use the library but never thought about how it could be used in their own research. The library is here for all the students, faculty, and staff of Saint Leo. Please come make use of it! Available online and in person!

We also hoped that through the reception we could find out what the graduate programs needed as far as resources and perhaps what we had on the shelves that are long out dated and shouldn’t be there anymore. Are you a Graduate Faculty member who didn’t get to make it to our reception? Stop by the library and we’ll be happy to chat with you! Please see Robert Fernandez, Janet Franks, or Michelle Joy. No matter who you are, if there is some resource you think the library needs, let us know! We can’t get everything, but we’d rather get things we know people will use for their research than things that will just stay on the shelves. Please contact us if you have any questions! -- Michelle Joy, Distance Learning Librarian