Volume 6, Issue 2, Fall 2005

IRIS: Save Time... Find Grants

http://www.library.uiuc.edu/iris

The Illinois Researcher Information Service (IRIS) provides valuable online research support for faculty, staff, and students. The service is free of charge to the campus community and includes:

• IRIS Database—Contains information on more than 8,600 funding opportunities from almost 2,000 sponsors and funding agencies, saving researchers the trouble of searching dozens of Internet sites.

• IRIS Alert Service—Creates individualized search profiles that run automatically at specified intervals and alert users about funding opportunities in their specified areas of interest.

• IRIS Expertise Service—Allows faculty to create detailed electronic CVs (“biosketches”) and post them to the Web for review by interested parties, such as colleagues at other institutions.

The IRIS database server recently has been upgraded for faster searching. Plans for the upcoming year include an enhancement of the database, a redesigned interface, an updated thesaurus, and more outreach services such as grant workshops.

Susan Harum, who holds a master’s degree in library and information science from the

University of Illinois, assumed the directorship of IRIS in September 2004. For questions and comments regarding IRIS services, please contact Susan at sharum@uiuc.edu.