LMU Library News

Library Urban Legends: Textbook Edition

"I heard that the library has textbooks that I can check out for a semester."

"How come you don't have textbooks for every class?"

"Aren't professors supposed to put a copy of every required text on reserve for us?"

These are just a small sampling of the textbook-related questions that we get at the Information Desk at the beginning of every academic year.

Unfortunately, as a general rule of thumb, the William H. Hannon Library does not collect textbooks for courses offered at LMU. But we promise it's not because we're trying to make our students' lives more difficult! To understand why this is the case, read on.

During the 2009/2010 academic year, there were approximately 2800 undergraduate and 600 graduate courses taught at LMU. Some courses have 1 required textbook, and some courses have 6 or more required texts. Let's take 3 textbooks as an average.

(2800 + 600) x 3 = 10,200 books

In that same academic year, the library purchased approximately 18,000 new books. If we were to buy just one copy of each required text each year, it would require dedicating 56% of our collection budget towards textbooks alone. Maybe this doesn't seem like such a bad proposition at first glance, but consider how quickly new editions of texts are published, rendering old "required" texts obsolete at a rapid pace. We aim to keep our collection relevant to the research and teaching goals of each academic department on campus, and doing this means collecting a wide variety of materials that support the subjects being taught, and encouraging our students to look beyond the required texts in their research.

So this is all fine and dandy, right? But this still doesn't help to alleviate the increasing costs of textbooks!

Read on:

It never hurts to search our catalog for the textbook you need. A librarian or faculty member might have slipped an order in there, in which case, if you're the first person in the class to find it and check it out, you're in luck!

Not in the catalog? Try LINK+. You can borrow materials from over 40 libraries for free. If there's a copy in LINK+, request it, get it delivered to the LMU Library within 3 working days, and you're ready to go. (At least for a few weeks at a time!)

It's also possible that your professor might have put a few books on reserve.

None of the above working for you? Read this article from the Los Angeles Times for some more suggestions. Or, if you'd like some advice from someone a bit closer to the source, this article from Hack College, written by then-LMU-student Chris Lesinski, has some great options.

And if all else fails, there's always the bookstore, which, by the way, now offers textbooks for rent!

Photo credit: Flickr / LMU Library

What are all those green books on Level 3?

You've passed by them a few dozen times, hardly giving them a second glance. But have you ever wondered what exactly lies within the hundreds of green-bound volumes in the glass cases surrounding the atrium on Level 3?

A) They're blank. The library just purchased them so that we would have something pretty to put on those shelves, and our Dean's favorite color is green.

B) They house all of LMU's secrets, so if we told you we'd have to banish you to the library basement for all eternity. There's a reason those cabinets are locked!

C) The National Union Catalog, Pre-1956 Imprints: A Cumulative Author List Representing Library of Congress Printed Cards and Titles Reported by Other American Libraries, Compiled and Edited with the Cooperation of the Library of Congress and the National Union Catalog Subcommittee of the Resources Committee of the Resources and Technical Services Division, American Library Association.

The answer must be C, because I couldn't make up a title like that if I tried.

It may be hard to imagine the value of such a work now, since we are accustomed to having millions of resources on demand with just a few swift keystrokes. The 754 volume, 528,000 page, 13 million+ record National Union Catalog, also known as "Mansell" (after its publisher), took 14 years and $34 million to come to fruition. Organized alphabetically by author, each volume contains reproductions of catalog cards (anyone remember the card catalog?) representing holdings of major research libraries in the U.S.at the time, including NYPL, the Boston Library, and Harvard University Library. And once upon a time, before the advent of the electronic catalog, this massive set enabled libraries and their researchers to learn about the existence of materials published before 1956 held in libraries across the country. (Just think about that for a minute. Before these sets were published, your local library's holdings represented the only books that would be available to you as a researcher, and you would have had no other way of knowing that other works might exist without traveling to libraries that might be hundreds or thousands of miles away!)

Although our online catalog and resources like WorldCat have mostly rendered Mansell and others like it obsolete, it can still be a useful tool for researchers needing exhaustive searches for pre-1956 works and for catalogers of rare books. In fact, a 2005 study indicated that 27% of the records in Mansell still cannot be found in WorldCat. To quote our collection development librarian, perhaps Mansell is not a dinosaur, but a manatee.

I'm a librarian, and have never cracked one of the 754 volumes [she admits shamefully...] But the century-plus of work that have gone into this set and into library catalogs and databases around the world that still today enable library users to find materials ranging from the commonplace to the unique is awesome and inspiring, and the green volumes lining the atrium stand as a quiet but wondrous testimony to both the history and the continued future of research and discovery in libraries everywhere.

For additional information about Mansell and the history of the National Union Catalog, read this great article by Danelle Hall published in American Libraries in 2004. (LMU library no. needed for off-campus access.)

Library urban legends: Can I make s'mores?

Over the past year, some of the LMU Librarians have been collecting questions about the new library from incoming freshmen. This continues our Library Urban Legends series, answering YOUR questions about the William H. Hannon Library!

Are there any new features [in the William H. Hannon Library] that aren't in the old one?

The short answer is yes! Here are a few, for starters:

• Extended hours, including some areas of the building open 24 hours/day.
• A cafe, with indoor media lounge and outdoor terrace.
• 80+ computers in the Information Commons, with IT and Library support available to you in the same shared space. 
• Expansive views of Los Angeles from the Hollywood Hills to the Pacific Ocean
• Exhibit spaces and a small auditorium for campus and community events.
• The building will be LEED certified, which means it meets international standards for sustainable site development, water savings, energy efficiency, materials selection and indoor environmental quality.
• A browsing collection of popular book titles (think more bookstore, less library.)
• More outlets than you could ever dream of.

Why isn't it a football field?

We thought that a football field might get a little chilly and damp at night, so it wouldn't be so conducive to housing a computer lab or safeguarding books. Studies also show that whistles, colliding bodies, flying objects, and cheerleaders aren't appreciated by students who are trying to study.

Is the fireplace real?

Yes! It is a gas fireplace behind glass, which leads us to the answer to the following question.......

Can I make s'mores in the fireplace? (No, really- that would be hard-core.)

No. :)

image credit: Flickr / Colin Purrington

Library urban legends: Robot arms & Pinkberry

This semester, some of the LMU Librarians have been collecting questions about the new library from incoming freshmen. This will be the first blog post of many dedicated to answering your questions about the new library.

Is there really a robot that will find the books for us?

In the early planning stages of the new LMU library, there was some discussion of including an Automated Retrieval System (ARS), or, if you will, a library robot. (Take a look at the ARS at Sonoma State University to see what we’re talking about!) Unfortunately, as we moved through the planning process for the new library, the final budget did not accommodate a system like this. In the Hannon Library, books will be retrieved from the basement the old fashioned way: by your friendly library staff and student workers.

When will the new library be completed?

This is the most popular question that we have received so far. Pending any unanticipated delays, the contractors and architects are on track to have the building ready for occupancy in June 2009. What does this mean for you? Moving a library from one building to another is an enormous logistical task that we are in the process of planning and coordinating. As such, we don’t yet have a locked-in date as to when the library will be fully operational and open to our community, and it will likely be a moving target for a while. (However, rest assured that the new library will be ready for you at the beginning of Fall 2009!) But this blog will be the definitive place to check back for announcements regarding library services during the move, moving and opening dates, and more.

Will the new library have a Pinkberry?

Sorry to disappoint all of you Pinkberry fans out there, but the new library will not have a Pinkberry. Repeat: the new library will not have a Pinkberry. However… if you want to bring your tasty tart frozen yogurt into the library cafe to eat while you study, we won’t stop you.

Have a question of your own? Let us know in the comments, and we’ll do our best to answer it in a future post!