Students both on and off campus have an abundance of library resources available to them this semester as they prepare for the fall midterms.

Possibly the most important resource the university library provides is its 24-hour availability feature. For student athletes, students with a heavy workload, and for those who just enjoy working at night, this service provides a quiet, controlled work environment throughout all hours of the day.

Stevenson’s library also provides an online “AskUs” feature. This feature allows students to see frequently asked questions to help them navigate the website. In addition, the “AskUsNow” feature provides students an opportunity to live-chat with a librarian, either Stevenson or elsewhere, and within minutes can receive answers regarding research or other library questions.

Stevenson librarian Bria Sinnott said that students get really “hung up” on citations and that the library is there to help them walk through a citation issue with handbooks for the most common citation styles including MLA and APA.

In addition to these handbooks, the library also provides workshops aimed at helping students correctly cite their research. The library even provides research workshops to help students through the initial researching process.

Traditional examinations, group presentations, papers, and projects are very common assignments during midterms. The library in the School of Business and Leadership, as well as the Learning Commons in the Manning Academic Center and the Greenspring campus library offer group study/presentation rooms that are available for reserve. These rooms can be reserved for up to four hours at a time through the Stevenson library website.

.Lastly, Sinnott also discussed procrastination and how students who struggle with it typically find it to be a very difficult habit to break. She added that the library is currently working to develop a “night against procrastination” where students will be able to develop their study skills and hopefully break their habits of procrastination. The date for this event is undecided.

Perhaps second to finals week, midterms can cause an incredible amount of stress for college students, who can avoid some of this stress by taking advantage of the resources that the university’s libraries provide. They have been proven to not only lead to lower stress levels during midterms, but also to maximize success.