Chattanooga State's Augusta R. Kolwyck Library
Chattanooga State's Augusta R. Kolwyck Library has a wide array of resources available to students and is an essential resource for researching a paper. The main library branch on Chattanooga State's Main Campus currently has holdings of approximately 73,000 printed books. The East Campus Library, a branch of the Augusta R. Kolwyck Library, provides periodicals and about 6,000 books to support the majors of the East Campus, and much more is available online. For example, through electronic databases such as NetLibrary and Safari Tech Books Online, the Library offers access to an additional 60,000+ books. The Main Campus Library can also send books to the East Campus Branch to be checked out there.
Library Work StationThe Library currently subscribes to approximately 200 periodicals and also has extensive holdings of back issues of many periodicals. Students have access to magazines and newspapers in print and electronically. From the Library's homepage, students can click on "Journal Title Search" to see a list of titles available in print or online.
The Integrated Library System allows students to search for books or videos from the campus library collection. The search window accepts wildcards, so typing poe? in the search window will find poet, poetry, poets, poesies, Edgar Allan Poe, or any other word or name beginning with the letters p-o-e. Once a writer finds a likely source, selecting More Information from the menu will give the writer a table of contents for the source, which can help determine whether the source is worth pursuing.
Depending on the research topic, students may also find useful resources under the Research Guides. These are topical guides to research sources on a variety of subjects.
Particularly useful to students are the library's electronic databases, which students can access from any computer with an Internet connection. These databases are like mini-libraries within the library's computer system and offer access to millions of reference, magazine, journal, and newspaper articles, many full-text, as well as links to relevant Internet sources. The databases are organized by topic or subject field, and students can find a brief description of each database on the library's website to help direct students to the database(s) that would contain the most probable information to support the scope of their argument or thesis.
Vicky Leather, Dean of Library Services, helps new students.Students should check the instructions for their essay assignments, as many instructors require students to use materials from the school databases as sources of support for their papers. These databases can be accessed directly from the library's home page at http://library.chattanoogastate.edu/. When using the library website on campus, no password is required. However, to access the library databases from an off-campus computer, a username and password is required. Instructors will give these to students at the beginning of each semester.
For assistance in citing information from the databases, students can find MLA examples for all of the school databases on the library website under Citations.
The Chattanooga State Augusta R. Kolwyck Library is an indispensable tool for students. Both branches of the Library at the East and Main campuses provide students with a place and the computer access necessary to research sources of support as well as research assistance from librarians and quiet areas to develop an essay. Students should become familiar with the library and all it offers as it can save time and effort in their work.
