Resources for New Students: Transitioning to College

High School vs. College Libraries

Even the best high school libraries and media centers look and work very differently than academic libraries.

Your high school library:

• was probably one room with one librarian who had a general knowledge of lots of subjects
• was only open during school hours, with help only available during those times
• only had a few online databases that were limited in scope, and very basic and geared toward school age students
• probably had filters or blocks on computers, limiting certain websites and searches
• held only a small collection of books on restricted subject areas, organized by the Dewey decimal system

The MU Libraries:

• have multiple locations specializing in different subject areas. Rentschler Library is the primary library for students on the Hamilton campus, but all students have access to all of Miami University Libraries! 
• employ over 40 librarians that have subject specialties and multiple master's degrees or a Phd in their area of study
• have access to hundreds of databases, from general to extremely specific (medical, primary sources, newspapers, etc)
• organize our materials with the Library of Congress classification system (not the Dewey decimal)
• hold over 4 million books, but as a student you can borrow from any Ohio academic library and you can access thousands of e-books and other online resources through OhioLINK

What does it mean to be information literate?

If you didn't hear this phrase in high school, you'll begin to hear it quite a bit now that you're in college. Information Literacy is defined as the ability to know when there is a need for information, to be able to identify, locate, evaluate, and effectively use that information.

Professors and librarians hope a first-year student can:

• Understand the value of finding evidence
• Identify keywords, synonyms, and related terms to describe information needs effectively
• Identify an author’s thesis / main point and basic structure of the information
• Understand the difference between quoting, paraphrasing, and summarizing
• Understand what constitutes plagiarism