Skip to Main Content

Faculty/Staff Library Newsletter

Library Renovation Updates  


 

 

Small study rooms are now open!
The two small study rooms off the ground floor lobby are now furnished and available for use. No reservations are required at present—if a room is vacant, it’s yours. Please do not leave your things in the rooms to hold them for later. Any unattended belongs left for more than 20-30 minutes will be removed to make the rooms available for others.


Ongoing progress
Work continues in the 1st floor stacks. The workmen are now installing new lights, and new carpeting comes next.  Since this area remains under construction, continue to use the 1st floor stacks book paging form to request books from this floor; these are being brought out for requesters several times a day.


Work has also picked up in the enclosure that will be the new staircase between the main lobby and the new reference room on the ground floor. The giant steel stair pieces were dropped into place last week. 


The echo chamber
You may have noticed that the Large Reference Room is a little louder than it used to be. The ceiling panels in the room previously absorbed a lot of sound, but these have been removed during the renovation. Sound now echoes around the room and into adjoining spaces. Please try to keep conversations low to keep the general noise down. 


The little things you’ve been missing
Permanent trash cans are now in place on the ground floor. There is one in the outer hallway and one inside the library near the metal stacks stairs. The library is excited to offer recycling for paper and bottles/cans finally!


There are again two operational pencil sharpeners in the library. You will find one in the Small Reference Room on the atlas case and the other in the 2nd floor stacks (hanging on the side of the stacks by call number PA).


 

 

EBSCO Open Access eBooks

Over the summer Buhl Library added a new package of eBooks to our EBSCO eBook collections. It includes thousands of scholarly books, all of which are open access. The library is proud to promote open access publications, which are part of a growing initiative to eliminate access barriers to research publications by cutting costs and use restrictions. These new open access titles, from publishers such as Taylor & Francis, De Gruyter, and several university presses, are now seamlessly included in searches in EBSCO eBooks and our Discovery search tool.


One of the key features of these open access titles from an eBook user’s perspective is that they do not have the usual restrictions on use that you will encounter with most EBSCO eBooks. There are no limits on how many pages you can print, save, or copy/paste, and you will not need a special software for using the downloaded eBook. Downloading is very simple, and that downloaded copy will never expire from your machine. We in fact have almost 100,000 eBooks with these less restrictive permissions on them available in our collection. You cannot search for them specifically, but it is increasingly likely you may hit on them in your research as more and more publishers embrace the open access initiative.


 

 

Buhl Library Top dogs 2020/21

Here are some of the most-used resources from the library last school year!

The Power Tool

Discovery is the premiere search tool for GCC researchers. It fielded over 113,000 searches last year and got you to the resources you needed by searching across our subscribed databases, our eBooks, and our physical library collections.

The Heavy Hitter

This set was the most-used work in the print collection last year. These 13 volumes are so heavily used that the library has 2-3 copies of each. Its lifetime circulations number over 1300!

The expositor's Bible commentary / General editors: Tremper Longman III and David E. Garland. Rev. ed. Grand Rapids, Mich. : Zondervan, 2006-2012.  Buhl - Open Stacks and Reference : BS491.3 .E96 2006

The Book Finder

You sat down over 11,000 times last year to engage with Henry, the library's online catalog, where you searched for books, DVDs, and other resources. That's not all. You also saved your results lists, renewed your books, and kept tabs on your check-outs by viewing your personal library account page, all from Henry.

The Top eJournal

The mission of the weekly online journal Nature is "to serve scientists through prompt publication of significant advances in any branch of science, and to provide a forum for the reporting and discussion of news and issues concerning science". We value that at GCC, as this was our top-used eJournal last year! Science was a very close second.

Nature

The Popular New Kid

Out of the thousands of items added to the Buhl shelves last year, this one was far and away the most circulated. It spent one semester on reserve. That'll do it!

Youth ministry management tools 2.0 : everything you need to successfully manage your ministry / Mike Work, Ginny Olson. Grand Rapids, Michigan : Zondervan : Youth Specialties, [2014]   Buhl - Open Stacks : BV4447 .W6685 2014

The Top eBook

Of the 100K+ eBooks we can access on the EBSCO eBooks platform, The Dictionary of Biblical Imagery was our top-used eBook. We also have this title available in the Small Reference Room, so it's great to see the online version getting so much use. After all, you can access it anytime, anywhere, and you don't have to wait until the other kid in your class is done using the print copy.

The Top Tunes

The Naxos Music Library and Jazz collection provided the soundtrack of last year. We streamed over 40K music clips from this subscribed library database! A lot of those were for classes, but assuredly a lot of them were not. This collection offers millions of classical music and jazz tracks, with hundreds of new recordings added each month.

The Big DB

Our number one database last year was JSTOR. This enormous collection of journal articles, books, and primary sources has content for just about every discipline, and while their content is often historic (that is, not current publications), during the pandemic JSTOR was one of many providers opening up their full collections to support researchers cut off from physical libraries. The GCC community definitely took advantage, accessing JSTOR resources more than ever before!

Landmark Briefs  


 

Did you wonder what all those red books are down in the new quiet study area on the lower level? There are so many of them, and you’ve never seen them around before! 

Landmark Briefs

 

These are volumes of the series Landmark briefs and arguments of the Supreme Court of the United States, which were in storage but now finally have a place in the newly redesigned library. This series contains petitions and briefs filed in major constitutional law cases. A court case that is studied because it has historical and legal significance is considered to be a “landmark” case. Our set has coverage from 1793 to 2015 and so includes such landmark cases as Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857), Brown v. Board of Education (1954,1955), Miranda v. Arizona (1966), and Roe v. Wade (1973)

Early Landmark Case: Marbury v. Madison, 1803

“A law repugnant to the Constitution is void.”

With these words, Chief Justice John Marshall established the Supreme Court’s role in the new government. Hereafter, the Court was recognized as having the power to review all acts of Congress where constitutionality was at issue, and judge whether they abide by the Constitution.

New Faculty Publication


Professor Ryan West has contributed to the new Oxford University Press publication Faith and Virtue Formation : Christian Philosophy in Aid of Becoming Good  (2021). Be sure to check out his chapter entitled "Willpower and the Cultivation of Virtues".

Buhl - Open Stacks : BV4630 .F25 2021

Recently Added Pedagogy Books


 

Below are some titles added to the Buhl collection in the past year or so that will be of interest to educators.

"It's the teacher that makes the difference, not the classroom. "-- Michael Morpurgo

Teaching Music Theory: new voices and approaches / Jennifer Snodgrass

Buhl - New Display : MT6.S6748 T43 2020

Approaches to Teaching Austen's Persuasion / edited by Marcia McClintock Folsom and John Wiltshire.

Buhl - Open Stacks : PR4034.P43 A67 2021

The Musician's Mind : teaching, learning, and performance in the age of brain science /  Lynn Helding.

Buhl - Open Stacks : ML3830 .H3 2020

Digital and Media Literacy in the Age of the Internet : practical classroom applications / Mary Beth Hertz.

Buhl - Open Stacks : P96.M4 H47 2019

Modern Languages / Katrin Kohl.

Buhl - Open Stacks : PB35 .K64 2021

The Language of Mathematics : how the teacher's knowledge of mathematics affects instruction / edited by Patrick M. Jenlink.

Buhl - Open Stacks : QA11.2 .L355 2020

World Music Pedagogy, Volume I: Early Childhood Education / Sarah H. Watts.

Buhl - Open Stacks : MT1 .W92 2018 v.1

 

"I like a teacher who gives you something to take home to think about besides homework."-- Lily Tomlin

The Battle of the Classics : how a nineteenth-century debate can save the humanities today / Eric Adler.

Buhl - Open Stacks : LC1011 .A319 2020

Social Media in Higher Education : case studies, reflections and analysis / edited by Chris Rowell.

Buhl - Open Stacks : LB2395.7 .S63 2019

Creative Music Making at Your Fingertips : a mobile technology guide for music educators / edited by Gena R. Greher and Suzanne L. Burton.

Buhl - Open Stacks : MT1 .C822 2021

 

Discovery vs. Henry - Getting to know the library’s search tools


 

There are two great tools available to help you find the resources you need in the library collection. Which should you use when?

Discovery

Discovery allows you to search across most of the library’s resources, both what’s on the shelves and what’s in our online databases.  It’s like Google for the library.

Pros

  • It’s convenient. You can search almost everything in the library at one time. You don’t need to know which database would be best for your research or decide what type of library resource you want to target.

Cons

  • It can be overwhelming. Because it searches so much, you might get a lot of results. For example, a search on “Bible” retrieves over 500,000 results!
  • It’s generic. Discovery pulls information from a lot of different sources and does the best it can with it. But it lacks the specialized search features you may find in individual databases or in the library catalog that are designed for a field or resource type.

Best for when you are

  • open to a mix of resource types (books, articles, online content, etc.)
  • especially interested in journal articles
  • looking for a very narrow topic and really need to explore all options.

Access Discovery through the search box in the middle of the library home page.

Henry

Henry is our traditional library catalog, focusing on the library’s physical collection of books, DVDs, journal titles, etc. It also includes many eBooks that are part of our permanent online collection.

Pros

  • It has great features. With features specifically designed for these types of materials, you can track items based on where they are housed in the library or how recently they were added to the collections, virtually browse the shelves, and more.

Cons

  • It’s just one piece of the pie. Henry doesn’t include as much online content as Discovery or provide access to journal article information.

Best for when you are 

  • looking for print books or DVDs
  • researching a broad topic and want to find just a few good books covering it
  • interested in using features that are especially suited to searching physical library collections.

Access Henry from the “Books (Library Catalog)” link under “Find” on the library home page.

Did you know that, as a GCC staff member, you have all of Buhl LIbrary's resources available to you? You can check out books, audiobooks, and DVDs as well as use eBooks and other online resources from anywhere on your college-issued laptop. 

Stop by the library to browse or learn more!

 

Featured Database  


 

MEDLINE with Full Text

 

MEDLINE with Full Text is a valuable tool for medical research, providing full-text access to articles from over 600 active subscription-only medical journals. This database offers the very latest in research--some articles are available here even before they are published in print! If you are studying or researching topics in medicine, nursing, dentistry, veterinary medicine, or health care administration, this database is a good one to know.

You can search the contents of MEDLINE with Full Text through Discovery, but in some cases you may prefer to search directly in the MEDLINE database in order to use its specialized search features that are designed specifically for medical research. For example, you can focus your searches on just evidence-based medicine or review articles. You can also limit searches by age group, gender, or animal if searching for non-human topics. Please see the attached flyer for more information on using MEDLINE with Full Text. 

What's New?


 

Here is a sampling of new resources in Buhl Library. Be sure to also check out the new book display in the library lobby.

Hover over a book's title to view a summary.

Follow Us


Do you want to learn more about the library? Follow us on our social media channels!

Buhl Library Instagram                            Buhl Library Facebook

Contact Us


 

 

Email: refdesk@gcc.edu | Phone: 724-264-4729 | Website: hbl.gcc.edu