Demystifying the library research consultation: a guide
The University Libraries offer research consultations—a 30–40 minute in-person or virtual appointment with a research librarian specializing in your area of interest—to help you refine your research questions, foster effective search strategies and choose the best sources for your projects and assignments.
What happens during a library consultation you may ask? Here’s what to expect when you book an appointment and how best to prepare for it.
Before your consult
Prepare several questions and talking points about aspects of your project to give the librarian an idea of how to guide you through the research and writing process. Consider:
- What are the requirements of my assignment (due date, number and types of resources required, citations, etc.)
- What is my research topic?
- What are my research questions? It's OK if it’s hard to define. Your librarian can help talk through it!
During the consult
You and the librarian will discuss your research questions and brainstorm a broad set of keywords corresponding to the authors and/or topics of interest before plugging them into the databases.
The librarian will recommend a few databases or other types of resources such as books or websites best suited to your topic. You and the librarian will then pop in the keywords and direct the database to search for them in the results' titles, summaries and abstracts. From there, we apply filters to weed out source and document types, language, publication date, peer reviews, etc.
Depending on how extensive your project or essay is, you might repeat this process multiple times in various databases until you find what you’re looking for. Some databases even have a feature that allows you to save your search history, which is helpful for long-term projects or for searching across multiple databases. The deeper you go, the narrower your search becomes.
By the end of the consultation, you should have a list of potential resources related to your research questions, the literature and interest.
After your consult
Once your consultation comes to an end, your librarian may follow up with you either by sharing notes and tips for further research or by sending an email with more information. If you feel that you would benefit from another consultation, feel free to make another appointment.