Feb 01
New Faculty Orientation: Bowling at the IMU
Indiana Memorial Union, 900 E 7th Street, Bloomington, IN
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Teaching, Research, and Creativity with Indiana University Bloomington Libraries
August 19, 2025
Welcome to the best years of your library life. Not only does IU Libraries Bloomington hold one of the largest academic print collections in North America, but we are also leaders in Open Access Publishing, Open Education Resources, media preservation, rare books and special collections, and the home of Indiana University Press. As a member of the Big Ten Academic Alliance, we provide you with rapid access to what may be the world’s largest shared library.
We can’t wait to see you at the New Faculty Picnic this week. In the meantime, these top tips will help you get to know our productive spaces, incredible databases, journal subscriptions, digital repositories, and world-class collections.
Find your personal subject librarian: Twenty-one subject librarians at IU Libraries have experience and/or education in the areas for which they have responsibility. We can’t wait to collaborate with you.
go.iu.edu/library is the place to start all research quests: you can access our digital collections and licensed material from everywhere, but you may need the IU Libraries website to process your search to avoid paywalls. We want to know if you have any trouble with access.
Put us on your syllabus: We need your help to get undergraduate students to invest in their research assignments. Send them to us with this text: “The Wells Library Research Desk can help you at any stage of your research process, whether that is developing a research question, locating articles and other resources, or evaluating information. You can schedule an in-person or virtual one-on-one appointment or drop in to meet with a Research Assistant who will work collaboratively with you to build your research skills and find the resources you need for your assignments. The Research Desk is located in the Learning Commons on the first floor of the Wells Library West Tower and open Monday-Friday from 11am-5pm.”
We offer grant programs for faculty: Engage students through creative research assignments with help from our Teaching and Learning Engagement Librarian and a donor-funded information literacy grant; or use our Course Material Fellowship Program to adopt or create zero-cost course materials.
Effectively manage, preserve, and share your data: IU Libraries’ research data services team can help ensure that your data meets funding agency requirements and publisher policies while aligning with FAIR Data Principles. Our IU DataCORE repository is here to share and archive research data developed at IU.
Make a request: Even though IU Libraries prides itself on its collections, we don’t have everything. Use the Request a Purchase form to let us know what you need us to buy (ebook, journal, dataset, streaming video) or use our rapid interlibrary loan service to quickly acquire what you need. We deliver to faculty offices.
- Preserve and share your scholarship: Access to data, research, and information is foundational to the production of knowledge. IU Libraries’ Scholarly Communication helps authors to publish and share their work as open access, meaning that your work can be immediately accessible to anyone, increasing the number of potential readers and citations. We have negotiated with several publishers for free or discounted open access publishing for Bloomington faculty. We also support Open Scholarship with impact/metrics consultations, and offer an open journals publishing program.
We hope you come to see us soon – perhaps you can visit one of the world’s great libraries by exploring the public galleries of the Lilly Library (our rare books and special collections library) or become inspired to make academic connections at our very unique Wylie House Museum. Come screen a relevant film for your class at the Moving Image Archive in the iconic Wells Library, or put a media item on reserve here.
We have been collecting the greatest ideas for more than 200 years, and we can’t wait to inspire yours.
Michelle Crowe
Assistant Dean of Engagement
IU Libraries