Library Collections

Alerting Services, Tables of Contents, RSS Feeds and News

Alerting services help you keep current by providing email or RSS notifications of newly published research, journal tables of contents, and other types of information based on criteria you select on each of the databases, journals, and publishers linked. Speak with your subject librarian if you have questions. For more information, see library.nyu.edu/alerting.

To keep current with library news, e-services, events and more, subscribe to LibLink.

To keep up-to-date with the latest IT news, subscribe to the ITS news feed at www.nyu.edu/its/about/news.

Ask a Librarian

Ask a Librarian is the Libraries' virtual reference desk, where you can ask your library reference questions via email, instant message, and SMS text, as well as make an appointment to meet your subject librarian. For more information, see library.nyu.edu/ask.

Avery Fisher Center for Music & Media

The Avery Fisher Center for Music & Media (AFC) is on the 2nd floor of Bobst Library. Its collections consist of more than 36,000 videos (including U.S. and foreign cinema, drama and music performances, documentaries, art films and more) and more than 87,000 audio recordings (including music from the broadest spectrum of classical, traditional, and popular artists, genres, and cultures). Viewing and listening facilities support a variety of analog and digital formats. For more information, see library.nyu.edu/afc.

NYU faculty, doctoral candidates, and registered teaching and research assistants have faculty-level privileges for video and audio. For more information on Avery Fisher Center's services for faculty, see library.nyu.edu/afc/faculty.html.

Bibliographic Management Software

NYU Libraries supports the use of RefWorks, a web-based research organizing program, and EndNote, a downloadable bibliographic database. These programs are free to use, licensed to the entire NYU community, and the library provides free classes on their applications. For more information, see library.nyu.edu/bib.

Borrow Books

Your NYUCard is your library card. You can also borrow books from the libraries at the New School, the New York School of Interior Design, Cooper Union, and Polytechnic Institute of NYU.

Book Loan Periods at Bobst Library
Faculty, Ph.D., and Masters students - 120 days
Undergraduate students - 60 days

Renew Books
Books borrowed from Bobst, Courant, Cooper Union, the New School, and the New York School of Interior Design libraries can be renewed on the web by signing into your e-shelf in BobCat.

Request Books
If you need a book that BobCat indicates is currently checked out, in processing, on order, at the bindery, or off-site, select "Request" next to the item you wish to recall or request from off-site. When the book becomes available, the library will notify you by email.

Additional Borrowers
You may also designate your research or teaching assistants as additional borrowers on your library account, allowing them to check out and renew books, and place requests on your behalf by presenting his or her valid NYUCard at Circulation. For more information and an online form to set this up, see library.nyu.edu/forms/ab.pdf.

Can't find a book that's supposed to be on the shelf? Try Quick Search.
If you can't find an item in the Bobst stacks even though the status of the book is "Available," fill out a "Quick Search" card (available throughout the library) and turn it in at the Bobst Circulation desk. A search will be conducted within 24 hours, and you will be notified of the results via email or telephone.

QuickCheck - Self-Checkout Machines in Bobst Library
Faculty and students can use Bobst Library and check out books 24 hours a day. QuickCheck self-checkout machines installed at the circulation desk on the main floor of Bobst, allow borrowers to check out books with a swipe of their NYU ID cards.

Find complete borrowing policies for Bobst Library at library.nyu.edu/services/borrow_renew.html.

Borrowing Privileges at Columbia and NYPL Research Libraries

NYU Libraries, Columbia University Libraries and the New York Public Library have launched an initiative to expand research collections and better serve our research clientele. The collaboration, dubbed the Manhattan Research Library Initiative, or MaRLI, enables NYU and Columbia faculty and doctoral students, as well as scholars whose work is based at NYPL, to check out materials from all three institutions, a first step to improve access to collections among the MaRLI members. The model is a departure from NYPL's historical practice, whereby research materials have not been allowed to circulate.

We encourage you to register for this important new service. For more information about MaRLI, including borrowing privileges registration and a list of participating sites at each institution, go to http://library.nyu.edu/marli.

Copyright and Permissions Support

Copyright law increasingly affects many aspects of scholarly research, teaching, and publication. All too often, your rights and obligations under copyright law may be complicated to determine or simply unclear. To help faculty members better understand how to use copyrighted materials and manage their rights as copyright owners, NYU Libraries now offers expanded copyright and permissions services.

For more information, please contact Melissa A. Brown, Scholarly Communications Librarian.

Copyright and Fair Use Information
A handbook for the use of copyrighted materials in educational and research activities for the NYU community is available online at library.nyu.edu/copyright. You can find definitions and principles of educational fair use, NYU policy documents related to fair use, FAQs, and campus resources for further guidance.

NYU Libraries Permission Support
Certain uses of copyrighted materials may require the permission of the copyright holder. NYU Libraries Permission Service is available to assist faculty with evaluating whether permission is necessary, identifying rights holders, and obtaining permission. For more information, please contact the Scholarly Communications Librarian.

Managing Your Copyrights
When publishing your scholarly work, there is a range of options available to enable you to share your work with the academic community and the general public. NYU Libraries is available to help you understand the copyright implications of publication agreements and your rights as an author. For more information, please contact the Scholarly Communications Librarian.

Data Service Studio

The Data Service Studio (DSS) is a joint ITS and Libraries service that supports quantitative, qualitative and geographical research at NYU. The DSS offers access to specialty software packages, statistical and GIS training and support, and consulting expertise for many aspects of numerical and spatial data for research, including data access, analysis, collection, data management and preservation. The DSS facility is part of Bobst's Research Commons and is located on the 5th floor of the library.

The DSS is equipped with 24 lab workstations and is designed for students, faculty and staff to receive consultation help and access to statistical analysis, GIS, qualitative and survey research software.

Consultation is available by appointment through the online appointment form via email (data.service@nyu.edu), telephone (212-998-3434), or on a walk-in basis. Information on upcoming tutorials, clinics, and other events is available by subscribing to the ITS/FTS Statistics and GIS Group Listserv at: join-statistics@lists.nyu.edu (send a blank, plain text, e-mail, or sign up for the list within the NYU Home portal).

Digital Studio

The Digital Studio (Bobst Library, 5th Floor, South wing) is NYU's gateway to digital services supporting scholarship and teaching. Studio staff offer training and consultation with:

Multimedia Services - Scanning documents, images, and slides; digital video and audio creation; media conversions, video editing, and DVD authoring.
Media Publication - Creating podcasts using the Digital Studio's dedicated podcasting room and uploading audio and video content to NYU's streaming or blog services.
File Storage and Management - Archiving your digital content, such as documents, working papers, and images. Repositories include the Faculty Digital Archive, ARTstor, and Files 2.0.
Digital Project Planning - Devising workflows and timelines for production on your projects; determining the best technologies and practices for digitization and metadata creation; and identifying appropriate storage and delivery methods to meet your needs.
Learning Management Tools - One-on-one assistance for all Blackboard-related questions.

See www.nyu.edu/studio for additional information, or send email to digital.studio@nyu.edu.

Digital Journal Publishing Service

For those who wish to start a new digital journal, convert a print journal to an online format, or administer an online journal more efficiently, the Office of Digital Scholarly Publishing is offering a tool called Open Journal Systems (OJS). This open-source software manages the complete process of publication, from author submission of articles through assignment to peer reviewers, editorial evaluation, and eventual online publication. Each journal can be branded with its own logos and design and configured for its particular editorial policies and procedures. For more information, contact, the Program Officer for Digital Scholarly Publishing.

E-Journals, E-Books & Databases

The Libraries' collection of e-journals, e-books, databases, and other electronic materials expands daily. The Libraries subscribe to over 96,000 electronic journal titles over 700,000 e-books. You can access these electronic resources on-campus or off-campus and you can add links to e-journal articles and e-books for your students on Blackboard. When working off-campus, you'll be prompted to enter your NYU NetID and password.

Use the e-journals page on the library website to locate specific journals, link to articles, or browse all available issues. See library.nyu.edu/collections/ejournals.html.

Significant recent additions to the Libraries' e-collections include:

Scopus – You now have access to Scopus, the "largest abstract & citation database", created by Elsevier. Scopus will complement the databases you already know and love. It brings strong, broad coverage of information from around the world, especially 1996+. Many users prefer its search engine to find literature from social sciences (including arts and humanities), life sciences (Scopus includes all of Medline), and physical sciences (including engineering). Besides journal articles, Scopus retrieves worldwide patents, patent citations, preprints, web sites, conference papers (10% of the content) and trade publications.

Scopus' Author search feature helps separate authors with similar names. Its Affiliation search collects all Scopus records for specific institutions and analyzes them. Scopus offers several analytical tools you may find useful: the "author evaluator" is a particularly cool tool. Try the Citation Tracker as well.

African American Archives (from EBSCO) provides over one million pages of original historical documents pertaining to the African American experience over several centuries, and is richly-detailed with narratives and quantitative data alike.

Digital National Security Archive - Two new collections were added: Chile and the United States: U.S. Policy toward Democracy, Dictatorship and Human Rights, 1963-1990; and U.S. Intelligence and China: Collection, Analysis and Covert Action

Education in Video is the first online collection of streaming video developed specifically for training and developing teachers. Upon completion, the collection will contain more than 1,000 video titles totaling 750 hours of teaching demonstrations, lectures, documentaries, and primary-source footage of students and teachers in actual classrooms.

Foreign Office Files for India, Pakistan and Afghanistan, 1947-1980 - Sourced from the British Foreign Office files, this is an outstanding resource for the political and social history of India, Pakistan and Afghanistan in this period.

Hartford Courant, 1764-1984 (from ProQuest) - America's longest continuously published newspaper, The Hartford Courant is literally older than the nation. It provides historians and other researchers a front-row seat from which to view the birth of an independent nation. In The Courant's pages, today's researchers will find firsthand accounts of colonists' reaction to the Stamp Act, reports of the Boston Tea Party, a copy of the Declaration of Independence, and its chronicles of slavery in the United States.

Oxford Bibliographies Online - OBO is an innovative resource designed to help students and scholars find reliable sources of information, significantly reducing research time. Recommendations and original content by leading scholars provide expert guidance, pointing users towards the best research in the field. OBO directs users to exactly the right chapter, book, website, archive, or data set they need, and links directly from the citation to the full text works.

Rock and Roll, Counterculture, Peace and Protest - Popular Culture in Britain and America, 1950-1975 Music, politics, fashion, youth culture - the period from 1950 to 1975 witnessed dramatic changes in society. There was the onset of Rock & Roll; the introduction of computers and credit cards; the boom of radio and television; and campaigns for black power, civil rights and women's liberation. All around the world there were challenges to authority.

By focusing on substantial collections of original archival material (manuscript, typescript and ephemera) from key libraries in Britain and America, the collection provides the primary sources that will enable students and scholars to examine these issues in detail and at first hand.

The Sixties: Primary Documents and Personal Narratives, 1960 to 1974 - This Alexander Street Press collection documents the key events, trends, and movements in 1960s America - vividly conveying the zeitgeist of the decade and its effects into the middle of the next. Through letters, diaries, memoirs, and oral histories; accounts from official, radical, and alternative organizations; posters, broadsides, pamphlets, advertisements, and rare materials; and Universal newsreel footage of the times (150,000 pages total upon completion) the collection tells the story of the Sixties.

Times of India, 1838-2001 - The world's most widely circulated English daily newspaper was founded in 1838 to serve British residents of West India. Today this historical newspaper serves researchers interested in studying colonialism and post-colonialism, British and world history, class and gender issues, international relations, comparative religion, international economics, terrorism, and more. In its pages, The Times of India illuminates key historical events and provides coverage of sports, the Indian film industry, and other stories of everyday life.

The Vogue Archive contains the entire run of American Vogue magazine from 1892 to the present day (more than 400,000 pages in total) reproduced in high-resolution color page images. This fully searchable database constitutes a treasure trove of the work of the greatest designers, photographers, stylists and illustrators of the 20th and 21st centuries.

Also acquired in 2010-11 were E-journal backfiles from Wiley, Blackwell and Taylor and Francis; and e-book backlist and frontlist from Palgrave.

Over 1,200 databases are available which index scholarly journals, book chapters, dissertations, images, video, reports, statistics, and more. Most of these databases, including the new e-collections above, can be accessed via the Databases A-Z list on the Libraries' website. See https://arch.library.nyu.edu/.

Global Library Services

Students and faculty at NYU Global campuses have access to an extensive range of online full-text collections including books, journals, audio, video and images through NYU Libraries' website. Librarians can help faculty identify online books and journals and recommend databases relevant to your syllabus. They can also assist you in creating Blackboard links to library content. For more information, see the NYU Global Library Services website: nyu.libguides.com/global.

Interlibrary Loan

Use the Interlibrary Loan (ILL) service to obtain loans or copies of items that the NYU or Consortium libraries do not own. Most ILL requests for books take about a week to fill. Journal articles arrive in a couple of days and are posted electronically for retrieval. Submit requests and track their progress online at library.nyu.edu/ill.

IDs & Accounts

The Internet, NYU email, NYUHome, Library resources, Blackboard, and many other online NYU resources require a NYU NetID (Network IDentifier) and create a password.

To activate your NYU NetID and create a password:

Connect to the ITS Start page at start.nyu.edu from any Internet-connected computer.
Enter your NetID. Your NetID is usually printed on the back of your NYUCard. If you do not know your NetID, follow the instructions on the ITS Start page to determine what it is.
To acquire a NetID, you will need to input your date of brith and your University ID number, which starts with the letter N and is printed on the back of your NYUCard.
Follow the steps on the ITS Start page to activate your NetID and create your password.
Follow the instructions in the NYUHome section of this guide to access the NYUHome portal for the first time.

For more information about passwords, see Computer & Network Security.

If you have problems or questions, please call the IT Service Desk at +1 212 998 3333.

Note: Certain ITS facilities and services for you and your students require you to apply for a special account. For application forms and more information, see www.nyu.edu/its/accounts.

Libraries at NYU

The Elmer Holmes Bobst Library on the southeast corner of Washington Square is NYU's main library for the Washington Square campus. Wireless access is available throughout Bobst. The library has 30 subject librarians to work with you. The Libraries' website is your gateway to the Libraries' services and collections: library.nyu.edu.

The other NYU libraries are:

Law Library
Frederick L. Ehrman Medical Library
John and Bertha E. Waldman Dental Library
Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences Library
Jack Brause Real Estate Library
IFA Stephen Chan Library of Fine Arts
IFA Conservation Center Library
Institute for the Study of the Ancient World Library
NYU-Poly Bern Dibner Library of Science and Technology
NYU Abu Dhabi Library

For details and links to these libraries' websites, see library.nyu.edu/about/locations.html.

Libraries, Non-NYU

NYU faculty have on-site access and borrowing privileges at Consortium and affiliated libraries:

The New School
Cooper Union
NY School of Interior Design

Full-time faculty have on-site borrowing privileges at Columbia and the New York Public Library research libraries. Research libraries at Yale, Princeton, and other institutions in New York, the U.S., Canada, and Europe can also be accessed. For more information, see library.nyu.edu/about/access.html.

Library Catalogs

BobCat is the catalog for Bobst, the Institutes of Fine Arts, Courant Mathematical Sciences, Real Estate, and the Study of the Ancient World as well as The New School, Cooper Union, NY School of Interior Design, New-York Historical Society, and Brooklyn Historical Society libraries. See www.bobcat.nyu.edu for details.

You can also connect to catalogs for NYU's Law, Medical and Dental libraries, and catalogs from other NYC, national, and global research libraries (NYPL, OCLC WorldCat, etc.) at library.nyu.edu/collections/other_catalogs.html.

Library Collections at NYU

The Libraries of New York University offer 5.3 million book volumes, 111,000 journal subscriptions, thousands of sound and video recordings, access to over 700,000 electronic texts, and one of the nation's largest collections of United Nations documents.

The Fales Library's many treasures include a renowned collection of the English novel from the mid-18th century to the present; one of the nation's largest collections of cookbooks and food-related material dating from the 1790s; and the Downtown Collection, an extraordinary, multimedia archive documenting the avant-garde New York art world since 1975.
The New York University Archives (10th floor) serves as the final repository for the historical records of NYU. Its primary purpose is to document the history of the University and to provide source material for evaluating the impact of its activities on the history of American social, cultural, and intellectual development. See www.nyu.edu/library/bobst/research/arch/
Tamiment Library and the Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives (10th floor) form a unique, internationally known center for research on trade unionism and progressive politics. The Center features unparalleled collections of archives, documents, manuscripts, books, photographs, films, and oral histories to explore the Cold War era and its wide-ranging impact on American institutions, politics, and civil liberties. See www.nyu.edu/library/bobst/research/tam/about.html.

For more about library collections, visit library.nyu.edu/collections.

Library Instruction

Learning to use peer-reviewed literature and other scholarly resources can be invaluable to your students' academic success. If you're assigning a research paper in class, you may want to:

Request a course-specific library instruction session tailored to the assignment and research needs of your class. For details, see library.nyu.edu/forms/instruct.html.
Assign your students one of the ready-to-go, downloadable exercises created by NYU librarians to help students develop library research skills. See nyu.libguides.com/libexercises.
Encourage your students to attend a pre-scheduled library instruction class. The schedule of classes is at library.nyu.edu/classes.
Encourage students to use the Library Research button on Blackboard course pages to link to BobCat, databases, and research guides in their subject area.
Refer graduate, honors, and advanced undergraduate students needing individual research assistance to a Subject Librarian; refer novices needing extra help to the Undergraduate Librarian. See Subject Librarians for contact information.

Linking to E-Journals in Blackboard

Links can be added to your Blackboard course for e-journal articles, images, and audio from the Libraries' extensive collection of licensed electronic resources. Directions for doing this yourself are available at library.nyu.edu/services/persistent.html.

The Libraries' Course Reserves department will create e-reserves links for you. The Course Reserve Request Form is at library.nyu.edu/services/reserves_faculty.html.

Off-Campus Access to Library E-Content

Databases, e-journals, and e-books are available on-campus and off-campus. When you are off-campus and try to connect to a subscription e-resource, you will automatically be asked to log in to the NYU EZProxy using your NetID and password. Your NetID is on the back of your NYUCard. Use the same password you use for NYUHome.

Paging and Delivery Service

You can now have circulating books from the Bobst and Courant Libraries paged and held for you at the library of your choice: Bobst, Courant, Institute of Fine Arts, Institute for the Study of the Ancient World, NYU-Poly, the Jack Brause Library at SCPS Midtown Center, or NYU Abu Dhabi. It is easy to use the service. When using BobCat, sign in with your netID. When you find an item you want, click on "Getit!". If the book circulates and is available at Bobst or Courant you will see the "Request" option. Click on "Request", specify your preferred library for pick up, and we'll let you know via e-mail when the item is ready for pickup.

For more information about the paging service, including turnaround time, see: http://library.nyu.edu/services/deliveryservices.html.

Photocopying, Printing, and Scanning

Bobst Library:

Photocopiers are located on every floor of Bobst except Lower Level 1 [LL1]. Color copiers are on the 3rd and 9th floors.
Printing is available at ITS labs and from most computers in Bobst, including the Bobst Library Computer Center (BLCC) wireless laptops. Printers are located on both Lower Levels and the first, third, fifth, sixth and ninth floors. Color printers are available in the BLCC on LL1 and on the 5th floor.
Scanners are available on LL1 and the 4th and 5th floors. For advanced imaging projects, use the Digital Studio on the 5th floor.
Your NYUCard can be used for photocopies, printing, and microform printing. You can also buy a copy card or use coins (photocopiers only).
Departmental copy cards for photocopying and printing at Bobst Library are available. Contact NYUCard Services to set up your department's account. See www.nyu.edu/nyucard/forms/copy.card.request.html.

For more information, see library.nyu.edu/services/printing.html. For information about museum quality digital printing at ITS' Advanced Media Studio, see www.nyu.edu/its/ams.

Information Technology Services:

With ITS' new Print Service, NYU community members can send documents from any NYU-NET connected computer to their personal ITS Print Service queues, and then print their documents at any ITS Print Station located at the ITS computer labs and at the ITS-affiliated College of Arts & Science Learning Center.

Students in degree and diploma programs, faculty, and staff automatically receive an ITS Print Grant every semester, from which printing charges are deducted. Should an individual use up his or her grant, Campus Cash can be used instead. Faculty and staff may also obtain a Departmental Copy Card.

For more about the ITS Print Service, see www.nyu.edu/its/print and www.nyu.edu/its/labs for lab locations, hours, and more.

Recommend a Library Purchase

Faculty participation in the selection process of books, journals, videos, and music is welcomed. Requests can be sent directly to your Subject Librarian or you can use the following online forms:

Books and journals: library.nyu.edu/forms/colform.html

Videos and music: library.nyu.edu/forms/video_purchase.html

Reference Centers

The Reference Center on the first floor of Bobst Library provides staff who can help you locate materials or plan your research strategy. See library.nyu.edu/research/ref_ctr.html.

Virtual reference service is available through our Ask A Librarian email, IM, and text services. See Ask A Librarian.

Reserves, Course

Instructors may place books, music, videos, personal materials, and links to e-journal articles, images, and audio from the Libraries' licensed collections on BobCat Course Reserves. Submit requests at library.nyu.edu/services/reserves_faculty.html.

See also Linking to E-Journals in Blackboard.

Subject Librarians

Bobst Library has 30 subject librarians who serve as liaisons between the library and academic departments. Contact your subject librarian to:

Recommend book or media titles for purchase.
Schedule library research classes for your students.
Request a library services update for yourself or demonstrations of discipline-specific databases for department meetings.
Schedule a consultation to learn more about library services, procedures, and collections.

For a full list of subject librarians and their contact information, see library.nyu.edu/research/lib_arc.html.