February is short, but our list of events at the library is not. The month is packed with learning opportunities guided by GC librarians, so come take advantage of us! Each title below will jump to a detailed description of the event. Click on the workshop’s date or title to go to a registration page.
Introduction to the Library
Tuesday, Feb. 4, 1:00–2:30 PM, room 8202
Tuesday, Feb. 18, 1:00–2:30 PM, room 8202
This introduction to the Graduate Center Library will include:
- an overview of the library website,
- subject-specific databases,
- resources beyond the GC library,
- sample search queries,
- citation management instruction overview, and
- archival and primary source subject-specific searching.
Fair Use in the Digital Humanities
Thursday, Feb. 6, 1:00–3:00 PM, room 9207
A crash course on fair use, particularly for digital humanities projects that use copyrighted works as data. We will look at the wiggle room intentionally built into the language about fair use in United States copyright law, as well as the increasing importance of transformativeness in fair use rulings.
Zotero on Your Laptop (for beginners)
Monday, Feb. 10, 1:00–2:30 PM, room 8202
Join us for a hands-on introduction to managing citations with Zotero, a free and open source research tool that makes organizing your research and creating bibliographies a breeze.
Please bring a laptop with you, and make sure you can install software on it, so our instructors can help you get started on your own devices.
- Learn about the basics of Zotero
- Install Zotero on your laptop
- Create a Zotero account
- Place citations into your Zotero account
- Create a bibliography using Microsoft Word plug-in
Fair Use for Non-fiction Authors
Tuesday, Feb. 25, 1:00–2:30 PM, room 8301
This workshop is designed for nonfiction authors of all types — including historians, biographers, scientists, and scholars of literature, theatre, art, and music — who want to know more about using copyrighted materials. The workshop will help researchers who want to do things such as:
- include song lyrics in a paper discussing musical trends;
- quote from a novel to analyze the author’s use of metaphors in a work of literary criticism;
- incorporate a photograph in an article about the photographer’s use of light and shadow;
- use a chart in a scientific paper critiquing a researcher’s methodology and findings; or
- quote from unpublished letters in a biography or memoir.
Join us to review principles and limitations of fair use for common situations nonfiction authors face when incorporating copyrighted works into their writings.
Using MS Word for Your Thesis or Dissertation
Wednesday, Feb. 26, 2:00 PM, room TBD
Bring your laptop and learn how to make the most of MS Word to format your dissertation or thesis. Whether you are just getting started or nearing deposit, this workshop will demonstrate techniques and tips to save you time and headache in formatting your document. Topics covered will include:
- working with styles;
- creating and using templates;
- creating an automatic table of contents;
- inserting tables, images, and external files;
- combining chapter files into one document; and
- using sections to control page numbers.
This entry is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International license.
Katherine Pradt is the Adjunct Reference and Digital Outreach Librarian at the Graduate Center. 
