Oklahoma State University Library Services to Professional and Continuing Students

Oklahoma University’s reputation is primarily based on its strong academic programs and also the institution’s state-of-the-art facilities. The university has matching resources to accommodate the thousands of students, staff, and visitors who it harbors at any given time. The university’s library is one observable facility in the heart of the university that cannot be ignored for its significant role in contributing to academic excellence. This modern-designed facility offers high quality and a variety of services that enhance the academic prowess of its students. Among the notable specially designed services that are provided by the Bizzell library and its branches to the professional and continuing students(PACS) include library research techniques, information databases, research sources, writing literature reviews and citing sources, interlibrary loans, and plagiarism avoidance in research work.

Services offered by the library to PACS student

The university library teaches the PACS how to conduct research specifically academic study. Research is a systematic scientific method of presenting educational ideas. This package helps the scholars to appreciate the literature that existed about their research topics. Also, it is useful in identification of research gaps and areas that need to be further exploited. Research is a fundamental component of learning and developmental studies. The library in a way has compiled a lot of research materials that are helpful to the students. Also, it has prepared several tutorials on how the students can go about the research work and access the documents they require.  It is prudent that all professionals and students get acquainted with research and analytical skills that are relevant to their fields of study. The library thus plays a significant role in complementing instructor’s work and also in enhancing the students’ research abilities.

Furthermore, the library using its online platform continually provides information databases to the global students where they can access to all the information pertaining professionalism and other subjects that they handle while navigating through the program. These databases comprise of a collection of resources particular to a discipline or subject. They provide in-depth and subject-specific information. These services help students to learn more about their coursework and research. In line with professional studies, databases rich in content, scholarly information and primary sources that are crucial to the students’ learning process are also found. The package that is exclusively designed for PACS by the library contains helpful academic information in nearly all subject areas. The university library has helped to ease the learning process significantly by providing professional and continuing students with information databases.

Moreover, the university’s library provides numerous research sources in the form of journals and scholarly articles for the students. Research sources are information materials that help to build up a concept or a research paper. The library has several elements that formulate study research, and they are delivered to the PACS through their website and personal addresses. The library has designed a specific service known as Xsooner express that enables research sources and study materials to be delivered to students at their request through the university website. All these services provided by the library specifically to the PACS are aimed at improving academic standards and easing their learning process.

The bookstore has designed a way to help students in writing, reviewing the literature and citing sources in academic research. Academic writing is essential for both professional and continuing students, and such skills are mostly not taught in details in class. Therefore the library is very instrumental in driving home the concepts and formats that are used in academic writing. Research forms the better part of scientific studies and development of ideas and theories. Academic writing is a crucial element in the learning process among the upcoming professionals and scientists to enhance continuity of scientific work and innovation of new ideas. The formats, literature reviewing and citing of information sources are among the components of academic writing. In formatting academic research writing, the students are enlightened on the different elements of a research paper and the formatting styles that are appropriate in all situations. In reviewing literature, the library teaches students on how to relate the subject they want to research on with the existing body of information materials. It is in examining literature that the students and professionals can then identify the current gaps in scientific work and propose theories or innovative ideas that could help bridge these gaps. Also, the library is obliged to demonstrate to the students how they should acknowledge the academic research that has been carried out by other researchers that came before them. Citing sources that enhance the flow of the ideas that any scholar wants to put across is crucial since the process gives credit to the authors as well as helping the students maintain academic integrity and avoid plagiarism while doing research. Therefore this service packaged by the library helps all the PACS since they could otherwise not be able to conduct SMART research while studying.

Furthermore, the library services include books and e-books finding services and also, interlibrary loan services where students can get access to materials that are either owned or not owned by the Universities’ library respectively.  Under this service, the university uses catalogs and metadata in preparing a guide on the procedures for obtaining a book from the library, its website or the library’s partners. Books and e-books are the centers of any learning process and generation of knowledge. The interlibrary loan services involve giving students access to books that do not belong to them. The library partners with other bookstores and lend books to them so that their students can have to access them for a specified duration. The unlimited access to this books enables students to get a comprehensive view of knowledge and sources that relate to the topics that they are studying. The library provides this prestigious service to the PACS to smoothen their learning process and also, to save them time and other resources that they would otherwise have utilized getting the books.

Conclusion

In conclusion, the Oklahoma University library, just as it is in the heart of the institution serves a pivotal role in enhancing smooth learning and conducting research work mostly among the professional and continuing students. This helps in training skilled world-class professional and experts in their subjects/area of study. The library provides a serene quiet environment for research, and with the improved services that are offered in this particular university, it is among the best places to conduct research studies. The library depicts all the academic experiences in the university, and it is one facility that can market the schools’ academic quality and reputation. Most of the professional and continuing students can attribute their academic skills and prowess to the high-quality services designed by the library specifically for them.

Reference

The University of Oklahoma. (2018, January 15). Professional and Continuing Studies (PACS). Retrieved from https://guides.ou.edu/PACS