At the center of campus, located in the Basement and Lower Level of Building 7, lies the Library and according to Doug Kaylor, director of the Library, it offers more than just books.
“I’m very proud of the fact that we have a place that students want to come to and I’m very conscience of our responsibility to provide students with a safe space, a space that’s social, but yet it’s a learning space,” Kaylor said.
Last year, students were able to see the changes made within the Library with the new staircases and LibSearch being introduced. This year, Kaylor said the changes are unseen.
“The changes that have taken place are mostly invisible,” he said. “There are improvements to services, there are increased resources, better computers, more books and electronic journals, improved Wi-Fi,” Kaylor said. “Things like that, that make the experience to our students better.”
The Library includes study space, computers and technology, academic support, eBooks, Libanswers, LibSearch, traditional books and magazines, six group study rooms, Starbucks and a quiet reading area.
In addition, the Library has a subscription to the Ohio eBook Project. That means that if a student wishes to check out an ebook that isn’t available at the Sinclair Community College Library, they could possibly check out the book from another library that has access to the service. They are then able to read the book through an eBook reader.
The Library also includes its own search engine and answer guide called Libsearch and Libanswers. Both can be accessed through the Library’s website. Libsearch can be personalized to better fit the individual users search criteria. The Library’s selection of eBooks can also be accessed through the website.
“In terms of library resources, we put things together for 24/7 access to information,” Kaylor said. “We have more electronic books today than we have physical books. Those are available to you at 3 a.m… They’re (students) taking care of their class business when they have the time. So with the electronics that we have today, all the eBooks and the electronic journals and our Libguides — there’s help available, essentially 24/7.”
If a student would prefer a conventional book, those are available as well. To check out a traditional book, a student can use their Tartan Card to do so. The student can keep the book for up to three weeks. This also counts for textbooks, with a slight variation — instead of checking out the textbook for three weeks at a time, they are able to check it out for up to three hours at a time and they must stay in the Library. However, not all textbooks are available.
“We do work with the faculty and we have a course reserve collection, and so there’s about 300, 400 titles over here that are textbooks and assigned readings… We’ll put any textbook on reserve that a faculty member makes available to us,” he said.
The Library has numerous computers available for student and community use. It is asked that before logging on, an individual will sign on at the Pharos station to be sure that every person needing to use the computer gets a fair amount of time.
Kaylor said at times, there may be short wait times for computer use. But he said it’s usually no more than 15 minutes.
“I think for the library portion of it, which is helping students exceed with information, our goals are really to try and simply do a better job of putting the right resources into the hands of students when they need them,” he said.
Kaylor said he is proud of the staff within the Library and hopes to keep improving over the next academic year.
“We’re a college — our business is students and it’s always, always fun to start a new school year” he said.
For more information on the library, visit their website at sinclair.edu/facilities/library.