• Home
• Find
• Services
• Help
• About the Library

Research Assistance

Phone: 217.545.2113
Email: reference@siumed.edu

Reference Support

Onsite reference service is available from 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM Monday through Friday. Questions sent through the Ask-A-Librarian form will be responded to during these hours. Reference staff provide assistance with:

• finding quick factual information
• finding books, journals and audiovisual materials
• developing a strategy for finding information
• using the software and hardware on the public computers
• accessing the services, materials and resources within the library
• finding detailed subject information
• tours of the Medical Library
• orientation to the Medical Library
• poster printing

Reference Desk

The Reference desk is staffed Monday through Friday from 10:00 AM – 2:00 PM. Beyond these hours, Reference staff is on-call for an additional 25 hours per week. Evenings and week-end support is provided by the Circulation staff.

Finding Books, Journals and Audiovisuals Owned by the SIUSM Medical Library

The Medical Library is a member of the Consortium of Academic and Research Libraries in Illinois (CARLI) and participates in their statewide online catalog. The local Medical Library Catalog includes our book, journal title, audiovisual and software holdings. Other information included within each entry includes the call number and location within the Library, as well as the circulation status.

If the Medical Library does not own the needed material, there is a link to the universal I-Share catalog for searching the holdings of the other 64 academic libraries in the consortium. Each registered user has his/her own account on the CARLI system and can request materials from other consortium libraries through this account. The status of materials that have been requested or borrowed is listed within the account record. Individual training sessions on the efficient use of the catalog can be arranged with reference staff.

Expert Search Service

Reference librarians can search over 500 databases through several different search services for articles and books on many topics. Librarians are trained on the specific search requirements of each system as well as how to analyze complicated search questions to find the best results.

• Literature searches can be submitted by the online Literature Search Request Form, by telephone, or in person.
• This is a fee-based service. All search requests must be approved for payment by the department fiscal officer or paid by personal check.
• Searches are usually completed within 24 hours, except on week-ends. Search results can be emailed to the requester or picked up at the Circulation desk.

Searching by SIUSM Users

Many bibliographic and full text databases are freely available for direct searching by SIUSM users. These databases cover many different subject areas and time periods. Reference staff can provide training and direction on these databases. Contact the reference desk at 217.545.2113 or reference@siumed.edu to schedule an appointment.

Poster Printing

Reference staff support the printing of posters on a large format printer for SIUSM users whose departments have paid for the service. Users need to design their own posters. Reference staff can provide some basic suggestions on poster set-up and design. Users can either load the print drivers on their office computers and send the poster document to the printer queue for printing, or bring their posters to the Medical Library on a memory stick or CD, or save it to the Library’s shared server. The posters will then be released to the printer by library staff. The Library supports PowerPoint and Microsoft Word for poster design. Posters designed in other software need to be saved as PDF documents before sending the final version to the printer queue. Classes are offered on poster and presentation design.

Software Support

Software support is provided for word processing, spreadsheet, database, presentation, desktop publishing, file translation, web page development and the Internet.

Scientific Editing Service

SIUSM authors can submit drafts of manuscripts, abstracts and grant proposals for editing by Information and Communication Sciences/Library faculty. The service offers suggestions relevant to journalistic style, clarity and use of appropriate scientific language, but does not review for content. Drafts should be provided as a Word document. They can be emailed directly to reference@siumed.edu. Library faculty will provide a two week turn around time, unless other arrangements have been made. For more information see the Scientific Editing page.

Tours and Orientations to the Medical Library

Tours of the Medical Library and orientations to the services and resources available can be arranged by contacting the reference desk at 217.545.2113.