SCPS Interdisciplinary Studies: Library Resources

Your Librarian is Todd Burks

Each school or department at UVA is assigned a research librarian. Connect with Todd for help with your assignments. This service is available to all SCPS students, and meeting with a librarian early in your research process can help you save time and get a better grade.

Todd can help with: learning how to use the Library online, brainstorming your research topic, developing your search strategy, capstone planning, identifying relevant databases/journals for your literature reviews, tracking down resources, and citation management. Todd can meet with you by phone, online via Zoom, or in-person if you're local to Charlottesville.

Schedule appointment

Email: infoman@virginia.edu

Phone: (434) 924-3162

Never pay for access to the sources or information you need for any research project! Your tuition pays for you to have everything you need, whether that's articles, books, films, or other types of information. If you cannot find what you need through our databases, tell us what you need using the request forms below. 

If you need refreshers on research strategies and concepts, we've got a variety of videos and tutorials to get you on your way.

We also offer access to LinkedIn Learning, a vast collection of 16,000 online courses on many subjects including business, software, technology and creative skills. Why not add more expertise to your resume?

And, ​​​​​in addition to the thousands of videos available directly in Virgo, you can also view documentaries, concerts, and feature films through streaming video resources provided by the Library.

In addition to searching our millions of books and ebooks, Virgo searches dozens of article databases (but only a fraction of the total we subscribe to). Use the tabs and filters to explore your results.

Have a look at a more complete exploration of Virgo and its features, including a suite of research tools available after you sign in.

Academic databases contain peer-reviewed articles, scientific papers, reports, and more. Virgo searches quite a few of these but the Library provides access to hundreds of additional databases you can use in your research. Explore them two ways:

1. By Subject in guides created by UVA librarians.

2. By Database in our huge list (sortable and searchable in various ways).

Managing citations is an important and sometimes complex part of scholarship. Incorporating citations properly into your work is one major component and there are good online sources such as the Purdue Online Writing Lab (The Purdue OWL) that can help. 

To capture and manage citation information using software, I recommend Zotero for all SCPS students. It's free and relatively easy to use for short papers, but powerful enough to help manage much larger projects. 

Zotero's website features a documentation section with more information about how to use the tool effectively, including links to video tutorials.

Want to explore other citation manager options?

You have access to hundreds of local, national, and international newspapers and news outlets as well as archives of historical newspapers. 

While you're a student at UVA, the Library is providing subscription access to the New York Times. Sign up with your UVA email address while connected to our network.