Faculty Research Support

Colgate University Libraries' mission is to provide resources and services to support and strengthen Colgate's educational programs. The Libraries also support faculty research by providing access to materials either through purchase or access to resources from other libraries. The Libraries are seldom able to support the purchase of specialized journals or databases unless they also support teaching.

The Libraries do support faculty research via the following services:

Reference services:

In addition to providing general reference support, your liaison librarian is available for individual appointments for research assistance or to review the availability of digital content that may be applicable.

Purchasing books and other materials

While the Libraries cannot purchase every title needed for faculty research, most purchase requests for books, films, and music are quickly processed. 

Journal and database subscriptions

New subscription or purchases should be requested via the appropriate purchase request form. Faculty should read the associated collection development policy statement, which describes the types of materials which are appropriate for consideration. Funding to add new subscriptions is limited. Access to specialized and very expensive titles may be made via Interlibrary Loan rather than purchasing a subscription.

Interlibrary loan

The Libraries are able to meet faculty research demands in a timely manner through a tiered set of interlibrary loan and document delivery programs. Foreign materials and those outside of the OCLC system may take longer. Rare materials may be available for loan at the discretion of the lending library for use in-house or may be digitized for your use. If material must be in hand in less than 48 hours or if you have questions, please contact Lisa King (x7597), as we have access to a number of document delivery services.

Faculty need not know which service below to use. Simply submit a request through the My Interlibrary Loan link and then we will determine the fastest way to get materials to you.

  • ILLiad Interlibrary Loan: The ILL team works with a global network of institutions to borrow all types of materials. We participate in RapidILL, which provides expedited receipt of journal articles (most as PDFs) within a day or two.
  • Worldcat : Search over 1 billion items in more than 10,000 libraries worldwide. 
  • Center for Research Libraries (CRL): Through our membership in CRL, faculty members have priority access to five million publications, archives, and collections and one million digital resources, with particular strengths in materials published outside the U.S. The CRL will also support the purchase of library materials and short-term access to databases and periodicals through its Request a Purchase Program.

Current Awareness Services

  • Keep track of research in your field with search alerts and table of contents services.
  • Subscribe to news and research updates with RSS feeds.