A highlight of the Islamic Studies Library research guides

Seizing the opportunity of the start of this new academic year, I decided to highlight the Islamic Studies Library (ISL) research guides that library staff conscientiously developed over the past ten years, and keep updating regularly. But before diving into the details, let me start by defining what a research guide is: a research guide -also called ‘subject guide’- is a curated list of resources focusing on a specific topic, discipline, or field of study. The research guides include both resources owned by the McGill library available only to the McGill community, and Open Access resources that are freely accessible to anyone on the internet. Our guides were developed by library staff with the help of graduate students, course lecturers and faculty of the Institute of Islamic Studies.

  1. How to access the ISL research guides?
    There are two ways you can access our research guides. Either you go to the Islamic Studies Library main page and look for the ‘Key resources’ menu:

Or you go to the main library webpage and look for the ‘Humanities’ tab in the ‘Subject guides’ column:

2. Which disciplines or fields are covered?
Originally, we had only two guides, but over the years we added ten more in the aim to cover the broad range of topics and disciplines taught at the Institute of Islamic Studies. Currently, you will find the following guides:

3. How can research guides help me?
Research guides list and link to selected resources such as reference materials (encyclopedias, dictionaries), periodicals, monographs, primary sources (archives, government documents, photographs, maps, etc.), websites, databases, etc. In addition, our guides include a number of tools that will be useful to Islamic and Middle East studies scholars like date converters, virtual keyboards for Arabic Persian, Ottoman Turkish and Urdu, as well as romanization and transliteration tables for these languages in non-roman scripts. As such, these guides are excellent starting points to dive into a topic, and familiarize yourself with the McGill library collections.

4. Where to go beyond research guides?
Within each research guide, you can access the library online catalogue (Sofia) to search for more resources on your topic(s) of interest at McGill, in Québec, and worldwide. If you need help doing so, you are invited to contact your liaison librarian (me) either by email or phone (+1-514-449-1952), or to make an appointment for a consult using the scheduling tool accessible from the guides:

About Islamic Studies Library video tutorials

One of the main roles of today’s academic libraries, besides acquisition and classification of information materials, is facilitate access and -when necessary- provide guidance and training on how to access resources and information through a wide-range of digital tools and services or online platforms. 

It may appear that technological development and digital tools have broadened our access to information, but sometimes we need guidance on how to use these tools to be able to benefit most from them. In order to avoid any unnecessary complication in accessing resources, libraries usually help users by creating step-by-step guides on how to use these tools. In the event of the COVID-19 pandemic, most library services moved online, and so did library guides and tutorials. Over the Summer, the Islamic studies library team produced video tutorials on how to use three important library tools and services: the Hathi Trust Emergency temporary access (ETAS), the McGill Virtual Private Network (VPN), and Islamic Studies library Subject Guides.

In this blog post, we will briefly introduce these tutorials.

  1. How to use HathiTrust Emergency Temporary Access Service (ETAS)

Hathi Trust digital library is a partnership of academic and research libraries offering a collection of millions of titles digitized from libraries around the world.” However, In response to this pandemic, this platform provided a new service in order to provide support for research, teaching and learning during the time of interrupted library services. As such,  Hathi Trust Emergency Temporary Access Service (ETAS)  provide access to digital material that corresponds to physical material that is held by the libraries. So for McGill library material over two million books from library’s print collection made available online, which counts for over half of McGill’s print collection. This temporary service is only available to McGill students, staff and faculty.  

To learn how you can benefit the most from this service, and some tips on how to access the digital books, please watch the video:

  1.  How to use McGill VPN services

McGill Virtual Private Network or VPN is one of the services/methods that provides students, faculty and staff with remote access to Library e-materials. For example, they can access e-books, or e-journals, etc., while they are not on Campus.

Please note that only some of the Library’s e-resources requires VPN connection to grant you access, the rest of e-resources will simply ask you to login with you McGill credential and then you will have access to that e-material.

Whether you chose to or you were required to use VPN to access library’s e-resources, you need to install and configure VPN on your computer/device and set it up. In this video, we will show you how to do this, and where to find the help that might need.

3. How to use McGill Islamic Studies Subject Guides

In doing research we need various range of resources tailored to our very specific topic, more over we need different types of resources from primary resources to online or open access materials and print resources.

Subject guides are one of the useful services that are usually created by the specialized librarian and link you to various resource available in your topic. Islamic Studies Subject Guide is tailored to the courses offered by the McGill Institute of Islamic Studies and is consist of 11 guides related to Islamic studies topic such as Islamic history, Islamic languages: Arabic, Persian, Turkish & Urdu, Middle East history, Ottoman & Turkish studies, Islamic thought and science and etc,. Each Guide provides a list various relevant and current resources that are available at McGill library or elsewhere.

In the event of COVID-19 pandemic, Islamic Studies specialized librarian created a comprehensive list of relevant resources that are available online or can be accessed remotely.

In this video we will show you where to find these guides and how to use them.

Should you have any question about or need any help with one of these tools and services, make sure to contact us at either:  islmcirc.library@mcgill.ca or anais.salamon@mcgill.ca.

Credits:

Blog post editor: Anaïs Salamon, Head Librarian;

Videos credits: Islamic Studies Library team : Anaïs Salamon, Head Librarian; Dr. Charles D. Fletcher, Head Library Clerk; Samah Kasha Senior Library Assistance and Ghazaleh Ghanavizchian Senior Library Assistance

New Islamic & Middle East studies subject guides

Over the Summer (2016), the Islamic Studies Library is reviewing, and updating, all of the Islamic and Middle East studies subject guides, in the hope to have fully functional, relevant, and easy to navigate subject guides for the new academic year.

Digital collections - Middle East studies - Guides at McGill University

As part of this project, numerous new guides were developed and launched:

We would love if some of you were to get involved: have a look at the guides, and let us know what you think! We’ll be happy to hear any suggestions or comments you may have!

Orientation workshop tomorrow!

Hi everyone!
Our first orientation workshop of the year (Getting started) will be held tomorrow, Tuesday  January 8, 2013 at 10 a.m., in the Octagon room. This will be the perfect occasion for us to answer any question you may have regarding the Library system, borrowing, or searching the catalogue, etc.
Feel free to drop by!

Middle East and Islamic Studies Library Orientation

The ISL is offering a Middle East and Islamic Studies Library Orientation session next  Monday (Sept. 10), 11 am-1 pm in room RM-23 (Redpath). From Library facilities and services to specific resources and how to find them, you’ll learn all there is to know about the Library to start your academic career on the right foot. Feel free to drop by!

Library Orientation 2012

Orientation 2011 McGill Library. Everything you need

The Library will be holding tours of branch libraries as well as workshops to help you get started and learn how to find the right stuff.  Attend all three of these activities to get a free McGill Library USB bracelet!

  1. Pick up your Orientation Passport at any library branch, during Discover McGill Street Fest or at the Discover McGill Service Fair.
  2. Get your passport sticker after each session you attend.
  3. Once you’ve collected all three stickers, drop your passport off at any Library Information Desk to recieve your free USB memory bracelet!

For a schedule of tours and workshops click here. The Amazing Library Race will be held on Thursday August 30, from 3-5 pm.  For more information or to register click here.