Libraries are an essential part of a university student’s life — they provide books for researching essays, a quiet place to study and textbook reserves when needed. Not only do the Univeristy of Saskatchewan libraries provide these services, but also many more that students may not even be aware of.

The U of S has seven libraries: Education & Music, Engineering, Health Sciences, Law, Murray, Science and Veterinary Medicine. No matter what you’re studying, there will be a library with material that is helpful to you.

Murray Library — the main library on campus — has an incredible collection of arts, humanities, social sciences and business material, whereas the other libraries are specific to their areas of study. As well as books and reading material, Murray Library has a interlibrary loan program and student learning services.

The interlibrary loan program is available for when the libraries on campus do not have the item that a student needs for their research. If this is ever the case, the library has an agreement with both public and academic libraries around the world to have the resource delivered to the U of S. So even if the library doesn’t have what you need, all you have to do is ask the librarian and they can get it from another library for you!

Through Student Learning Services, the U of S libraries provide many different services to help with the academic success of students on campus. Among these services are the PAL Peer Mentors, group study rooms, public class pages, workshops and the Research Paper Planner.

The PAL Peer Mentors program pairs up academically strong undergraduate students with students who may need some extra help. The peer mentors provide course-specific help through one-on-one mentoring for students who need help with a class or discipline. They also provide more general studying help through small workshops for things such as developing stronger studying skills. No matter what kind of help you need, you can contact the PAL Peer Mentor program through library.usask.ca.

If you need a quiet place to work on a group project or to just study with some friends, the library also offers group study rooms for booking during operating hours. You can book a room in any of the libraries on campus for up to two hours at a time and up to two weeks in advance. You can book through the “library” tab on your PAWS account with just the click of a button.

Student Learning Services also provides many workshops that are helpful for all students — from those just starting out in university, all the way to those who are writing their thesis for a masters program.

The library holds workshops most weekdays and sometimes several times every day. Some upcoming workshops will cover areas such as stress and procrastination, reading effectively, public speaking skills, learning to use Microsoft Excel, relaxation techniques and writing a research paper. These are a few topics among many and you can check out all of the upcoming workshops at library.usask.ca, under the “workshops” tab.

As well as workshops and mentoring, the library website also has online tools that can help you achieve academic success. A few of these are the public class pages, where they put up lectures and notes from past classes that professors have made available. They also have things like the Research Paper Planner, which helps you to manage your time and keep you on track while writing a research paper.

It’s definitely worth your time to look around on the university library website — you might find something to help you that you never even knew you were missing!

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Lyndsay Afseth

Graphic: Lesia Karalash / Graphics Editor