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Services

Reference Services

Location: 1st Floor
Phone: 718.982.4010
Email: reference@csi.cuny.edu

Reference Services assists students, faculty, staff, and the local community in identifying, locating, and retrieving information in a variety of formats. Regardless of how specific or general the nature of your research project, reference librarians are available to provide guidance in every aspect of the research process. Reference librarians can help you:

  • find information on a topic
  • develop research strategies for papers and projects
  • search library catalogs, article databases, and Internet resources
  • locate facts and statistics

If you have any questions about conducting research, locating library materials, or using library resources or services, please ask a reference librarian for assistance. There are many ways to contact a reference librarian:

Chat with a librarian using the Instant Messaging window in the Ask Us! box

Call the reference desk at: 718-982-4010

E-mail your questions to reference@csi.cuny.edu

Stop by the reference desk on the first floor where a librarian is available to answer your questions during all library open hours. Library users who need more in-depth or advanced assistance may schedule a research consultation with a subject librarian in their area of study.

Reference Collection

The library’s reference collection is located on the first floor (just beyond the reference desk). Reference books are useful for locating:

  • Facts
 “What is the chemical formula for methane?”
  • Definitions
 “What is a podcast?”
  • Statistics
 “What is the rate of teen suicide in the U.S.?”
  • Biographies
 “Who was Karl Marx?”
  • Topic Overviews
 “What was the Boston Massacre?”
  • Geographical Information
 “Where is the Thames River?”

Resources found in the reference collection include dictionaries, encyclopedias, atlases, handbooks, bibliographies, indexes, and other reference books in all subject areas. Reference books are non-circulating, which means they cannot be checked out. The library also has an extensive e-reference collection with full-text reference books available online.