Campus libraries offer more variety

By Daniel Miller/reporter

New students to TCC, and even current ones, may not know how helpful the campus libraries are and what a wide range of services they offer.

Besides textbook rentals for current classes and other teacher resources, students can rent novels, graphic novels and DVDs. If students have a research paper due or just want to research something for fun, they can head over to the library and check out the many databases it offers. The student’s TCC ID card is the library card, and the WebAdvisor login is the library login.

If the student needs to study, the library offers silent study rooms and group study areas. If the student needs a computer, the library has desktop computers and laptops available. Need to scan, print or copy something? It has that too.

What students may not know is that the staff in the libraries will even help them with research assignments.

“We can help you narrow down or choose your topic and find resources to support it,” SE library services assistant director Tracey Minzenmayer said in an email.

All of these resources can also be accessed from home at library.tccd.edu. Students also have access to over 90,000 e-books.

The TCC libraries offer the same services on each campus, but all campuses offer some things unique to them to “fulfill the needs of their community,” NE public services librarian Bonnie Hodges said.

The SE Campus library will host two grant-funded programs this semester. Native Voices, on display through Sept. 27, focuses on the wellness, illness and cultural life of Native Americans, Alaska Natives and Native Hawaiians. The second program, World War I and America, will run November to February.

South Campus has two early college high schools: the on-campus TCC/Fort Worth ISD Collegiate High School and Crowley Collegiate Academy in Crowley. South librarians are currently stocking the Crowley campus with books and periodicals.

South also provides internships for high school seniors through Six a Step Beyond, a workforce program helping office skills students, and they sponsor FWISD students each summer in the Vital Link Program, designed to show “the link between what is learned in the classroom and what is needed for success in the workplace,” South library services director Linda Jenson said in an email.

South also provides internships to students in the Upward Bound work study program during the summer. The project is designed to help selected students develop skills to complete high school and do well in higher education.

On NE, two dominant programs are paralegal and dental hygiene, so the library offers a legal collection to browse through. The NE library also is the only one with 3-D printers.

The TR library assists nursing and allied health students with their APA formatting and offers therapy dogs to students once a month, TR library services assistant director Danielle Toups said.

The NW library holds a Faculty Roundtable Lecture series every fall. The event, held in the library’s reading room, provides faculty and students the opportunity to discuss history and government topics along with other academic areas.