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YOUR BEST FRIEND ON CAMPUS:
WHAT CAN THE GCC LIBRARY DO FOR YOU?

by Susie Chin and Billy Pashaie, adjunct librarians, GCC Library

 

If you were playing a game of poker, wouldn’t you like to have a professional card player by your side to assist you and give you helpful advice on strategy? Poker is a game that combines skill, luck, and persistence, three of the same elements that make up research. Experienced researchers use their skills to find quality materials, they sometimes count on luck in the serendipitous location of information, and they don’t give up easily.  These days, instructors are finding that an overabundance of easily accessible information on the Web has greatly diminished the quality of “research” conducted by students who seem to depend more on luck than skill. Fortunately, as anyone who uses the Glendale College Library knows, librarians are available to help with research strategies that go light years beyond “luck.”

     The GCC Library’s goal is to provide a supportive atmosphere and outstanding public service to students, faculty and staff. Despite the availability of numerous places on the Internet where people might get information, the GCC Library, a campus resource, not just a student resource, can fulfill information needs beyond what the Internet can offer. While students have access to a variety of resources and services at the library, faculty and staff have access to the same offerings and then some.

     As a GCC community member, you can access all of the library’s online resources—from the online catalog to subscription databases such as LexisNexis Academic or the new Science Resource Center —from your office or home computer. Are you interested in flex credit, or just want to learn more techniques on how to look for specific newspaper or journal articles through one of our databases?  Attend a one-hour-long library workshop. Are you looking for a book or an article that the GCC Library does not own? The GCC Library can usually get it for you free through an interlibrary loan.

     Did you know that the GCC Library has recently acquired many new fiction and non-fiction items that might be of interest, not only to students, but to staff and faculty as well? Have you been placed on a mile-long waitlist for the latest bestseller at your local public library? Check out our New Books Collection; we just might have what you are looking for. Want to read the latest novel by Walter Moseley? We’ve got it. Fortunate Son is waiting to be picked up from the New Books shelf. What about Jared Diamond’s latest book, Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed? We have that, too. Looking for the latest edition of Consumer Reports? It’s shelved with the current periodicals on the first floor of the library. Maybe it’s the Kelley Blue Book you want. Ask for it at the Circulation Desk. Did you know that the library is the official archives for Glendale College history? We have old yearbooks, and historical issues of El Vaquero and the Eclipse.

     These are just a few of the services the GCC Library offers. For more information on other resources and services, visit us at the library.

     The GCC Library promotes personal, intellectual, and creative development for all library users at Glendale College, faculty and staff included.  Our biggest reward is when a library user comes back to tell us they think the GCC Library is their ace in the hole. &

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