Halloween came a few days early to Central Connecticut with the sixth annual “Trick or Treat” event in Elihu Burritt Library.

Last Tuesday, Oct. 29, students could stop by various booths placed on the first floor and learn about different resources. There were five in total: Gale, JSTOR, ReffWorks, Scopus and Psychinfo. 

If students went to every station (which would be denoted by a stamp on their card), they would be given seven raffle tickets. The prizes for the raffle included an iPad, a $50 Barnes and Noble gift card and Starbucks gift cards. 

Librarian Susan Slaga-Metivier was put in charge of the event. However, she is not the one who came up with hosting a trick or treat event in the library. 

“This is actually the project and brain child of my colleague Kristen DiMato,” Slag-Metivier said. “She got the idea from a library conference that she had went to and we figured it would be a great idea to promote the electronic resources that we have here at the library.”

Most of Central’s electronic resources come in the form of databases. 

“We have over 176 databases,” Slaga-Metivier said. 

With that many resources, there is something for everyone, and every topic. However, not all of these resources are given the attention they deserve. 

“A lot of students are not aware of all the resources we have,” Slaga-Metivier said. 

The first source is ReffWorks. You can use ReffWorks to keep all your sources organized. You can make and share folders in order to work on multiple papers and with multiple people at the same time. This e-resource will also generate a bibliography. 

Next is Gale, a database that is good for finding primary source materials. Gale is also good to use for history papers. After finding the sources you need, you can grab the citation for it off Gale and it can send it to citation websites like Easybib or ReffWorks. 

The third e-resource is called JSTOR. This resource lets students access scholarly sources and peer reviewed journals. A downside is you may not be able to find the most recent issue or article on here. However, what you do find will be in full text. JSTOR will also generate citations for you.

Scopus is next. This database is similar to JSTOR, as it shows scholarly and peer reviewed articles as well. However, this database is best for papers dealing with the topics of medicine, technology, science and engineering. Scopus also has a feature called “search alerts.” This means any time there is a new article on the topic you are researching you will be emailed saying that it is available. 

The final e-resource is Psychinfo. This database looks at the psychology side of various topics. The drawback is the articles that are found here may not be available in full text. 

Once students were done going to the different booths they could grab some apple cider, Halloween cupcakes, cookies or mini muffins and relax. 

All of these e-resources can be easily accessed from Central’s library website, which should make writing all your final papers convenient.