St. Thomas Libraries Blog

The Libraries are excited to introduce a new AI-driven way to explore scholarly sources using LibrarySearch. Research Assistant allows you to ask research questions in your own words, rather than relying on traditional keyword searching.

The tool constructs an advanced search across over 5 billion records in a unified database of vetted, reliable academic materials, then returns citations for five relevant sources and provides a brief overview of these sources based on their abstracts. Additionally, it offers suggestions for related research questions. You can also view the complete search results generated by Research Assistant in LibrarySearch.

Research Assistant enables you to discover content beyond St. Thomas collections. Items not immediately available locally can be requested through our interlibrary loan service.

As with any experimental tool, there are limitations. Research Assistant is not able to retrieve sources from local collections, like physical books owned by St. Thomas. It also excludes news content and material from certain providers, including JSTOR and Elsevier.

To make the most of Research Assistant, try asking detailed, specific questions about academic topics, like the ones displayed on the starting screen.

We hope you find this new tool helpful! We welcome you to share your feedback through a brief survey.

You may have seen the announcement that went out to all UST faculty and staff in the Need-to-Know announcements in late October.  While the article linked there was a more general announcement that included some information most relevant to web editors and program coordinators, this post is meant to highlight information most relevant to faculty.

What is Research Online?

Research Online is UST’s institutional repository.  It is designed to highlight and preserve the scholarly work of our university community by providing a centralized, public-facing platform for users both in and outside of UST to discover research, publications, and other scholarly endeavors of our faculty and students.  While UST has had an institutional repository for a long time, our migration to a new software for it this past winter introduced some new features.

What’s New This Year? Faculty Profile Pages! 

Starting this year, Research Online features personalized faculty profile pages. Once set up and populated with scholarship, these pages automatically pull in new publications like books and journal articles.  Other scholarly content like conference presentations or datasets can also be manually added (either by faculty adding things themselves, or by submitting a list of them via the help form or contact email listed on our Research Online faculty help guide).  Repository users could always filter search results by author, but profile pages allow faculty to customize how their scholarship is featured in the repository, as well as supply additional information about themselves and their research interests.

Why Engage with Your Faculty Profile? 

Having our faculty in Research Online allows those both in and outside of the UST community a view of our faculty’s scholarly contributions, expertise, and research interests in one easily accessible place. Your profile can be customized with additional information about your professional background and areas of expertise, which makes it a valuable resource for: 

• Expanding your visibility: People both inside and outside of the university community can easily view your profile and learn about your research.

• Supporting partnerships: A robust profile can help you share your work with potential funders, conference organizers, and collaborators, as well as increase your reach with students and the general public. 

What About the Existing Profiles on UST’s External Website?

The external website profiles will continue to exist, but the library and MIC are in the process of integrating the profiles so that much of the biographical and scholarship information featured in the public-facing, external website profiles will be pulled from faculty’s Research Online profile.  This integration should be finished by the end of fall semester.  Apart from Research Online’s ability to automatically pull in scholarship, one advantage of having things set up this way is that faculty who want it will gain more direct control over the content of their profile.  Once the integration is complete, faculty will have the ability to edit things like their scholarship list, bio, and other profile information themselves in Research Online and see those changes get pulled into their external website profile vs. needing to wait for a web editor or coordinator to do it for them.

Do Faculty Need to Do Anything?  

The short answer is no, with a “but.” Most full-time faculty members already have profiles in place and do not need to do anything to get theirs set up.  To find yours, visit the Faculty Profiles section of Research Online and search for your name.  The “but” is that once you find it, you have the option of making it more robust by editing or adding things.  You can do this by either:

1. Logging in and editing on your own. Use the link in the upper right corner to log in with your UST credentials. Once logged in, you will see an “Edit Profile” button you can use to adjust your overview information, as well as an “Add Scholarship” button you can use to add things that might be missing.  Our help guide has a tutorial page with instructions for doing this. 
2. Submitting a help form request–While basic changes can be made directly by faculty members, the library staff is available to assist with more complex adjustments like adding a longer list of new or missing publications.  Use the help form or email address on the Research Online Help Guide to submit a request for any issues you’d like help correcting.

A Coordinator/Web Editor Usually Does This for Me–Do I Have to Do It Myself Now?

One of the advantages of syncing Research Online with the external web pages managed in Cascade is that faculty can make direct edits to their profiles themselves if they want to.  HOWEVER, once the integration work is complete, faculty can continue working with coordinators as they always have if that is the preferred workflow within a school or department.  The library is happy to help with any workflow questions that might come up between faculty and coordinators about how the back end of Research Online works.

Not Seeing Your Profile? 

If you do not yet have a profile or have one but it does not contain any scholarship, it most likely means the libraries did not have a CV for you.  We can easily activate one for you and/or add your scholarship.  Simply submit your CV using the Research Online Help Form and we will get your profile set up. 

Other Questions and Getting Help 

For additional assistance or questions about managing your profile not covered in our help guide, faculty can contact the Research Online team at libraryresearchonline@groups.stthomas.edu. They’re ready to support you. 

Open Access Week: October 21–27

Each year, Open Access Week celebrates the potential benefits of transitioning research to Open Access (OA). This year’s theme, “Community Over Commercialization,” emphasizes the importance of prioritizing models that serve the scholarly community and the public rather than those driven by profit.

To help faculty explore this theme and think about which practices are most beneficial to them and their work, the library and Academic Affairs are offering a series of resources and events:

• Thought-Provoking Article: We encourage you to read this article from the Chronicle of Higher Education highlighting some of the challenges associated with OA models that are favored by many of the major scholarly publishers.
• Library Guide on Open Access: The UST Libraries have created a guide that offers information and resources about the library’s ongoing commitment to Open Access and its role in supporting OA initiatives.
• Faculty Workshop – October 22: The libraries and Academic Affairs invite UST faculty to join us for a workshop dedicated to scholarly publishing. The Changing Landscape of Scholarly Publishing will provide an opportunity to discuss your experiences, share concerns, and address the challenges you face in publishing your research. We hope this discussion will foster collaboration and generate ideas for how we, as a community, can further advance the open access movement.

The library is excited to highlight these opportunities to continue the OA discussion on campus and support our collective efforts to promote accessible, community-driven scholarly publishing.

Meet The Book of Kells, also known as The Book of Columba, an ancient Celtic gospel created around 800 AD. Our reproduction of The Book of Kells was given to The University of St. Thomas by John O’Shaughnessy, grandson of Ignatius Aloysius O’Shaughnessy, who was the largest financial benefactor to St. Thomas during his time. The original Book of Kells was created by monks living in the historic areas of current day Ireland or Scotland. They illustrated the gospel stories of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John in beautiful detail in a style known as an illuminated manuscript. We’re not sure exactly who created the Book of Kells, but researchers have identified at least 4 different types of handwriting and art styles. They believe each section was written by different monks, currently referred to as A, B, C, and D. 

The Book of Kells wasn’t just for reading. In fact, while the book is famous for its stunning pictures and designs, it contains some errors in writing and repeated passages. The book’s focus was on the art, not the writing. It was known as a sacred object filled with symbols, hidden meanings, and beautiful illustrations.  

You can find the reproduction of The Book of Kells and other books John O’Shaughnessy donated in the O’Shaughnessy room, also called the Leather Room, on the first floor of the OSF Library behind the Stacks Cafe. Thanks to his donation, we can see The Book of Kells in full color; the reproduction is complete with the specific physical markings and scrapes that mar the original book. 

As you flip through the book, you’ll notice big pictures marking the start of different sections, and pages with beautiful artwork at the beginning of each Gospel. The book is housed in a leather presentation box, embellished with silver plated metalwork and embossed with gold knotwork designs inspired by decorative elements from the original Book of Kells.

Come visit the Book of Kells and wonderful treasures at the University of St. Thomas libraries!  

Blog Post and photos by: Hannah Brenden, St. Thomas ’24