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Frequently Asked Questions

How do I change my email address to my preferred email address for library services?

All UNI students, faculty, and staff are automatically given a UNI email address and all university communication is sent to this account. For more information about your UNI email account, visit campus Information Technology Services.

All library communication is automatically sent to your UNI email address. If you wish for Rod Library to send your library recall and overdue notices and other library communication to your preferred email address, please change the email address located in your library record.

To specify a preferred email address (e.g., hotmail, yahoo, or school district accounts) rather than your UNI email address, go to the My Library Account function.

Once you are in Rod Library's My Library Account function, click on Modify Personal Information, and change the email address to your preferred email address.

After you have changed the email address, library notices and other library communication will be sent to your preferred email account. This will take care of communication ONLY from Rod Library and DOES NOT effect communication from other campus units.

How do I access licensed electronic resources from home or from off-campus?

You must be a currently registered student in order to have access to the Rod Library's licensed electronic resources including databases, ebooks, and ejournals. From the Library's website when you click on any link to a licensed database, ejournal, or ebook, you should be taken to the university CatID login screen. If you don't use the Library's website to get to different resources, you may be taken to a vendor's website where UNI's CatID system is not recognized. For additional information, see the Off-Campus Access link.

How do I determine if Rod Library owns a book?

Use UNISTAR, the Library's catalog, to identify if the Rod Library owns a book. UNISTAR will tell you what items Rod Library owns including books, videos, CD-ROMs, maps, journal titles, etc. UNISTAR does NOT go down to the article level. Therefore, to locate articles on a topic you will need to go to another section of the library web pages.

How do I identify articles on a topic?

There are many electronic indexes and databases that will find articles on specific topics and give you many complete articles. Use Panther Prowler to search several databases at one time for information on topics. For information about using Panther Prowler, see the Panther Prowler Guides: User Guide and Video. If the complete article is not available in a library database, click on the Find it linker to possibly find the article in another licensed resource. Search INDIVIDUAL databases when you need more POWER and PRECISION in your searching. The View a list of databases A-Z link under the Articles tab takes you to an alphabetical list of library databases.

How do I get a copy of an article?

Rod Library will photocopy, scan, and e-mail in-house articles to your e-mail account. We will also attempt to obtain articles not owned by Rod Library using interlibrary loan and try to get it from another library. To request an article, complete and submit the Article Request Form. You can phone, mail, FAX, or email your requests. For more information, see Find and Request Articles and Photocopying and FAX Services.

How do I get a book?

Rod Library will located, check out, and send you books owned by the library. To request a book, complete and submit the Book Request Form. You can phone, mail, FAX, or e-mail your requests. For more information, see Circulation of Library Materials and Find and Request Books.

How can I find information on how to do footnotes, references, and bibliographies for internet resources?

For information and help on various style guides use the following resource guides: Style Guides at Rod Library, Style Guides (Online), and Citation Makers. These help guides can be found under on the Research Tips page under the Research Help link on the library homepage.