Library Social Media

Truly, the library values your  perspective. We love talking and listening to you. And as much as we love seeing your bright and shiny faces at the reference desk or in library training classes, we know you can't always come to us. So we've decided to come to you! We're excited to announce our new and improved social media footprint. From Facebook to instagram, from Twitter to Pinterest, we're all over the intewebz now and looking to meet up. We'd like for you to join us. Whether you want to keep up on interesting popular book news, ask a reference question, learn about the library's extensive resources or just tune in for college news and announcements, we've got you covered. Come follow, like, or pin us and let's get this conversation started!

Lacey Torge
Outreach and Social Media Librarian

TCTC Professional Development Day

On Tuesday, March 3, TCTC students had no school.  Was it because of wintry weather?!  No, this time it was for Professional Development Day.

Every semester, the students get a day off so that the faculty and staff can have a day for planning and development.  This year, we spent the morning learning about various topics such as leadership, teaching, accreditation, and project management.

My favorite part of the day was the afternoon spent with the entire division of Student Support and Engagement.  I work in the library at our Easley campus and don’t see many of my coworkers on a daily basis, so I love the times when we all get together!  On this occasion, we had several fun team-building exercises to work on in small groups.  How tall do you think you could build a tower using nothing but spaghetti and marshmallows?  My team had a tall tower going until it began collapsing under its own weight.  Do you think you could keep a dropped egg from breaking with nothing but a paper plate, masking tape, and a few straws, toothpicks, and marshmallows?  It’s harder than it sounds, but my team managed it!

Sure, these exercises sound silly (particularly for a bunch of adults), but they get the point across in a fun way.  Our teams were learning how to work together to solve problems so that we may better help the students – our true goal!

Allison Read

Easley Library Coordinator

Interlibrary Loan and Document Delivery

One of the services a library provides its patrons is interlibrary loan and document delivery. The American Library Association gives a definition of Interlibrary Loan as “a process by which a library requests material from, or supplies material to, another library. The purpose of Interlibrary Loan is to obtain, upon request of a library user, material not available in the user’s local community.”

The process of requesting books or journal articles from other libraries is pretty straightforward. Every library has an interlibrary loan form for patrons to fill out for this purpose. However, it is not always a foolproof method of obtaining exactly what a patron wants. The problem usually stems from the fact that sometimes a patron does not provide complete information on an item.

Requesting a book is simple. All you need to do is giving the title of the book, the name of the author and the date it was published. However, requesting a journal article is a different story completely. Just the name of the author or authors, the name of the journal the article published in and the date published does not help locating it right away. An author can have several articles published in one journal. At the same time, since these days, most journals have their online version, the dates published in print and online are not necessarily one and the same. To request an article, its title is always needed. Better yet if volume and issue numbers are also available, it would make it even easier for a busy Interlibrary Loan librarian to find that article in a timely manner. Without them, there would be a lot of fumbling and stumbling all the way to an unhappy patron who did not receive exactly what he was looking for.

Kultida Dunagin

Electronic Resources and Interlibrary Loan

Community Campus Libraries at Anderson and Easley

Oh the looks and the comments we get when a student walks into the Community Campus Library at either the Anderson or the Easley campus. The Anderson Campus library is only 16’x24’! The Easley Campus not quite double that size. Both Community Campus Libraries could fit in the Pendleton Campus Library with plenty of room to spare. Typical comments are “This is the library?” “I’ve never seen a library this small.” “I guess I will have to go to Pendleton for my research.” “I will never find what I need here.”

My typical response as the Anderson Campus Library Coordinator is we may be small but we are powerful! While we may not be physically impressive we have access to all the materials that TCTC has in their libraries. Books can be borrowed from any campus and shipped to the campus that is convenient for you. Generally that will take a day or two.  TCTC actually has access to more e-books than physical volumes! The Library contains over 96,000 books and audio-visual material (38,000 print and AV; 58,000 e-books), 160 print journals, 20 newspapers, and many databases supplied by TCTC, PASCAL and the State of South Carolina's DISCUS program. We also have access to books through PASCAL. PASCAL books will take a little longer to arrive. PASCAL provides us with books from any academic library in South Carolina and 235,000 e-Books.

The Anderson Campus Library is located off of the main lobby on the first floor (room 120). The Easley library is located down a side hall off of the lobby (room 116) Both libraries are just steps away from the open computer labs. The library staff is always willing to go to the lab to help you with a research problem.

Size doesn’t matter when it comes to the Community Campus Libraries. Please remember the library is just a click away!  library.tctc.edu

Debby Thrasher

Anderson Community Campus Library
dthrash1@tctc.edu

Spring vs. Fall Semester

It’s the second week of spring semester, and things at colleges are a little different in the spring compared to the fall.  For starters, there are fewer students.  While some students graduated or transferred at the end of fall semester, there are far more who don’t attend classes in the spring semester for other reasons.  Usually this is a result of a GPA disaster in fall, but sometimes students do fine academically but have family situations that prevent or delay their return. 

Students who do return usually start studying earlier in the semester.  We are certainly seeing more students using the library for this during breaks between their classes than we did in the fall.  Spring classes are usually more advanced than those in the fall, so there’s an increased workload.  Successful students now realize they need to review class notes every day instead of just before tests.  They also see the benefit of doing the assigned reading in the textbook before class, so they understand more of the lecture the first time they hear it.

In the spring semester, the vast majority of people on campus are familiar with the campus environment.  This means that in general, everyone knows the names of the buildings, where to park, who’s in what department, and how to get whatever it is accomplished.  In the fall, library staff seems to spend the first three weeks of the semester giving directions to various buildings and showing students (and sometimes new staff members!) how to navigate eTC.

Because most students have been here for at least one semester by now, faculty tend to think that the students remember EVERYTHING from last semester.  Librarians are often approached by students who need help and sheepishly admit, “I knew how to find books last semester, but I forgot”.  It’s important to remember that “student semesters” are different from “instructor semesters”, like “dog years” are much longer than “people years”.  Instructors know that students learned something in a pre-req course last semester and they expect them to apply it flawlessly now, five months later.

If you knew how to use TCTC’s library last semester but seem to have forgotten what to do this semester, please ask a member of the library staff for help!  Alternatively, you can watch a quick video for a refresher on whatever skill needs polishing on the library’s Instruction Video” page: 

http://library.tctc.edu/instructionvideos

Sue Andrus

Information Literacy Librarian

Clemson Football

When the Clemson Tiger football players board the buses to make their grand entrance into Death Valley, the fans go wild as we watch them on Paw Vision travel around the stadium to the East end zone.  The announcer says, “This is the most exciting 25 seconds in College football!”  Coach Howard's tradition is splashed across the screen, "If you can’t give 110%, then keep your filthy hands off my Rock.”   The players and coaches all gather at the ROCK to touch it as the cannon goes off which signals the players to run down the Hill into a sea of screaming fans, Tiger Band and Cheerleaders.  Eighty thousand  plus fans start the cheer, C-L-E-M-S-O-N T-I-G-E-R-S, FIGHT TIGERS, FIGHT TIGERS, FIGHT, FIGHT, FIGHT.  The best part of not just winning the game is the excitement and craziness of all the fans that go down on the field to congratulate the players and coaches hoping to get an autograph or two. Clemson Football season is the best time of the year but the hard part is having to wait seven months before it starts all over again. ..Are you ready for some Football?  ALWAYS!!!

But you don’t have to wait seven months. You can find out more about college football and other kinds of sports in the Library just by doing a subject search in the Catalog.

Claudia Poore
Circulation Manager

Welcome Back!

The Library is happy to see all your smiling, happy faces as your return this spring.  Some reminders as you come to the library to research, check out books, or hang out.

If you are checking out books:

• We need your TCTC ID
• You can check out 6 books on a topic - well actually you can only check out 6 books.
• Book checkout (not including reserves) is 2 weeks with the ability to renew once if  no one has the book on hold.

Two large group study rooms are available for check out to 3 or more people at one time.  There are computer hook-ups to a large screen in that study room (you can hook up 5 computers).

Yes, you can bring food and drinks in BUT please clean up any mess you make.  We also appreciate it if you have a lid on your drink.

The Library Cafe will be opening beginning January 20.  Normal hours are Monday to Thursday 9AM to 4PM.

We have lots of print magazines (example: People, Sports Illustrated) and local newspapers available to read here in the library.

All our computers EXCEPT the two by the circulation desk require you to sign in.  Please remember to sign out so that your private information is secure.

Information Literacy workshops are conducted through out the semester for classes.  However if you miss the one for your class, we are happy to work to get you into another class.  Alternatively you could view the videos at  http://library.tctc.edu/informationliteracy

Remember our motto for the year: "The Library is the heart of your research".