A lot of research lately turns up the fact that a great many people still think of libraries as “just books.” While libraries have been updating their collections with DVDs and electronic books online and Internet access, the people who are using them (or who should be using them) still tend to think of libraries as being about “just books.” Are you limiting your opportunities in that manner?
Take a look, for example, at some of the lists of things which the Boreham Library provides. The Featured Lists in the catalog, for example, covers tape cassettes, computer CDs, audio compact discs, DVDs, electronic books and PDF files, music scores, and web sites. The Journal Locator finds magazines and newspapers in paper, microfilm or microfiche, as well as online versions.
The Library also has materials both in the Reserve Room and in the online reserves, which you can search by your instructor’s name. Some of this is available online, 24/7, if copyright permits, and can include your instructor’s notes, exams, and other materials. It can also include links to other online materials, such as web sites or online videos.
The Boreham Library selects a number of databases of journal, newspaper and other articles and pays a lot of money annually to provide them for you online. These are organized by name and also by the subjects covered. That gives you a huge amount of material which is considered much more suitable for your research papers than just surfing for any old web site you can find, and it’s usually much more complete information, too.
Of course, the Library subscribes to regular paper magazines and newspapers, too. Some of these are not available online, or are much more limited online. The Library staff is even busy working on creating more materials online, by scanning in materials which have never been on the World Wide Web before, or indexing local history materials.
Thinking of a library as “just books” is like somebody thinking of you as “just a head.” There’s a lot more to you than that, and there’s a lot more to the Boreham Library. Don’t let such old-fashioned ideas limit your thinking!
