Reference & research

Information Services librarians provide reference services in the information disciplines and museum studies areas to:

  • iSchool students, faculty, and staff
  • Alumni
  • Other members of the University of Toronto community
  • Members of the public

Service availability

  • In-person:
    • Mondays-Thursdays: 1–7 p.m. at the Inforum Information Desk
    • Available at most other times by request – please ask at the desk
       
  • Telephone: 416-978-7060
     
  • Email: help [dot] ischoolatutoronto [dot] ca
     
  • Chat via our homepage (September–mid April)
    • Mondays –Thursdays: 5–10 p.m.
    • Fridays: 5–7 p.m.
    • Saturday & Sundays: 11 a.m.–7p.m.
    • Chat service is on hiatus during the summer (mid April–early September)

Levels of service

1) Quick reference

  • Available to all users
  • Provision of answers to factual questions that can be readily answered
  • Examples include:
    • How to find books, articles, and other resources
    • Questions about citation formats
    • How to access and use University of Toronto Library e-resources

2) In-depth reference

  • Available to iSchool students, faculty, and staff
  • Examples include:
    • Course-related assistance
    • Search strategies
    • Effective use of article databases, library catalogue, and other U of T e-resources

3) One-on-one consultations

  • Information Services librarians and other staff members provide customized research consultations to iSchool students, faculty, and staff
  • To make appointments, please contact us at help [dot] ischoolatutoronto [dot] ca
  • Assistance is provided in areas such as:
    • Getting started on assignments
    • Finding articles on your topics
    • Literature search strategies
    • Web-based projects
    • Practices and procedures of information organizations
    • Systems configurations
    • Cataloguing
    • Information literacy

4) Faculty research services

  • iSchool faculty and instructors may request research services
  • We also offer Current Contents, a journal alerting service, to our faculty members
  • Contact nalini [dot] singhatutoronto [dot] ca (subject: reference%20request) (Nalini Singh), Reference Services Coordinator, for more information