The Harper College Library has an extensive list of online resources and services available to students. This page is designed to provide information regarding frequently asked questions about those resources.
Students and faculty are encouraged to contact us directly, and as often as you like, for assistance. You can reach us at library@harpercollege.edu or by using our Live Chat service. (Note: You may reach a librarian from a partner school, or the other side of the globe, if you chat after library hours.)
All Harper faculty, staff, and students in credit-bearing courses have remote access to Harper subscription resources. You must begin at the Harper College Library homepage to ensure you are accessing resources via Harper's subscriptions. When you click on a subscription-only resource from off campus, you will be prompted to log in with your MyHarper username and password (the same you use for email, Blackboard, etc.), on a screen like this:
If you are a student and encounter technical difficulties logging in, you should contact the Student Support Desk.
The Library subscribes to about a hundred databases that are all available to credit students off campus. To find a database:
1. Click on the "Databases" link under the "Quick Links" section of the Library website.
2. If you know the name of the database you want, you can navigate to it using the alphabetical list.
3. If you do not know what database you want, you can click on the drop down menu to sort by subject or by Area of Interest.
4. Click on the database title to open it. You may be asked to log in with your myHarper username and password.
If you want to share an article with a small number of people, or even just with yourself, databases have options for saving and sharing.
In databases published by EBSCO (Academic Search Complete, CINAHL, GreenFILE, etc.), you will see the following "Tools" panel when you are viewing an article record. There are many options, but the two most common are "Email" and "Permalink:"
The "Email" option will take you to a form that allows you send the article to specific email addresses. This is helpful for saving the article for your own use or for sharing with a small group of individuals.
The "Permalink" option provides you a permanent link to the article in the database. Whoever clicks on the link from off campus will have to log in with their MyHarper username and password, so this link will only work for Harper affiliates. The Permalink is the only way to get an article link that will work later. You cannot simply copy the URL from your browser window. If you are trying to share a link to an article in a class, for instance, use the Permalink.
Most Library databases generate citations for articles and other materials. These citations are often machine generated, so it is important to check them against correct examples in a style guide for errors, but overall this function is a great shortcut.
In databases published by EBSCO (Academic Search Complete, CINAHL, GreenFILE, etc.), you will see the following "Tools" panel when you are viewing an article record:
Clicking this link will give you the citation in many different citing styles. Scroll down until you find the style your class is using, and copy the citation directly into your assignment.
Most databases have a similar function. When you've found an article or other material, search the page for a link that says something like "Cite" or "Citation." If you need help finding this function in the database you're using, or if you need to create a citation from scratch, ask a librarian for help.