January 2020
JANUARY 2020
DID YOU KNOW...
...that the Mercyhurst University Libraries donate their old books to benefit world literacy? For the past 10 years, the Mercyhurst Hammermill Library has utilized Better World Books whenever it needed to remove books from the library collection. We’re likely to use Better World Books even more in the future.
Better World Books is an award-winning, for-profit social enterprise and a global e-retailer that collects and sells used books online with a matching donation for each sale. Since its launch in 2003, Better World Books has raised more than $28 million for libraries and literacy, donated more than 26.5 million books, and reused or recycled more than 326 million books.
Rather than sending unneeded books to a landfill, or even recycling them, Mercyhurst sends no-longer-wanted books to a distribution warehouse for resale as used books. BWB deposits a portion of the proceeds from Mercyhurst donations in its Literacy Grant fund, which funds specific projects by literacy and education nonprofits and libraries on the front lines of the fight to reduce global poverty through education.
While the library continually manages its collections and removes books, the “need to weed” is even more urgent now, due to the addition of the Cyber Security Lab on the lower level of the library, the recent renovation to the main level, and the upcoming merger of the Mercyhurst North East Campus with the Main campus.
At the main campus, library space will be created for titles coming from the North East library first by weeding nonacademic content that has never circulated in the library, and then by removing titles older than 50 years that have only circulated once. All books removed during this process will go to Better World Books.
As the Mercyhurst North East transition nears, certain titles at the North East Ridge Library will be tagged for transport and relocation to the main library and the remainder will be boxed and sent to Better World Books.
This will be an arduous process and will take considerable time and effort for both libraries. By partnering with BWB, we can rest assured that the libraries are living up to Mercyhurst’s Core Values.
— Darci Jones, University Libraries Director
Introducing the Oxford Research Encyclopedias website
Do you need a dependable reference resource that you can use on and off campus easily and share with others who aren't affiliated with Mercyhurst? Oxford Research Encyclopedias from Oxford University Press can help you out. Their website includes research encyclopedias covering many disciplines, including history, business, climate science, communication, etc. While some articles are behind a paywall, many are open access and free to view and customizing your search to return only free results is easy. New approved articles and new summaries are added to the encyclopedia on an ongoing basis. Move over, Wikipedia! There's another free encyclopedia in town.
—video by Karen Niemla
staff present session at Employee Professional Development Day
Jan. 7 was Employee Professional Development Day at Mercyhurst, with an afternoon of learning and camaraderie for the many types of staff employees. Library Director Darci Jones, Distance Learning Director Kayla Murphy, and University & Ridge Archivist Bryan Colvin co-presented a session called "Hidden Treasures Behind the Bookshelf: Archives and Copyright," introducing staff to some helpful information and services the library provides. The first part of the session covered how copyright law applies to in-class and online instruction and how the library's online copyright guide can help faculty and staff comply with copyright law. Next, Mr. Colvin showed why archives are important to the university community and its different departments.
The library is with you even when you're on Google
Although we always encourage you to start your research at our library website instead of Google.com, if you'd prefer to use Google we can still be there to help you! Google has a special search sub-domain called Google Scholar, available at https://scholar.google.com/. Google Scholar focuses on searching for scholarly literature, including books, journals, legal materials, and more. Not everything is available in full text for free and some items may be expensive to view, but if something is available in our collections, a link to the item will be provided. Watch the video to learn how!
—video by Karen Niemla
WORK STUDY OF THE MONTH: Myanna Smith
The Work Study of the Month for January is Myanna Smith, a freshman majoring in Criminal Justice. She is from another Great Lakes shore city, Rochester, New York, which borders Lake Ontario. Myanna is active on campus, being involved with Black Students for Unity and the Cheerleading team. While working at the library, she most enjoys interacting with people and learning about librarianship. At home, she has a Pomeranian poodle mix dog named Leo. After college she hopes to earn an internship with the FBI or CIA and become a crime investigator.
— Angela Okey and Karen Niemla
a closer look at EBSCO's CINAHL Complete
CINAHL Complete is the definitive research tool for nursing and allied health professionals. With CINAHL Complete users get fast and easy access to top nursing and allied health journals, evidence-based care sheets and quick lessons. It includes full text for more than 1,300 journals dating back to 1937. While it is included in the "Search Everything" tool on our home page, accessing CINAHL Complete directly gives you powerful search tools for finding nursing content.
— Karen Niemla
STACKS CRACKS
—Karen Niemla
