You’ve probably visited the library on your campus. NOVA’s libraries have resources to help students succeed in research, to study, work on group projects and more. Studies show that students who make use of their campus libraries get better grades, are more likely to graduate and have better love lives (well, maybe not the last one – but you never know what could happen).

What you might not know is that NOVA’s libraries harbor some secrets. So here’s the big reveal.

Librarians are the college student’s secret weapon. Librarians can help you settle on a research topic, narrow down a topic, find resources for your research, dig up statistics, discover images and even find online videos. Librarians can even help you prepare a bibliography and help you with citations.

Google is your friend. Even librarians like to use Google. To use it to its maximum effect, use the Advanced Search feature to limit your search. You can limit by domain to find sites from colleges and universities (.edu) or the U.S. Federal Government (.gov). You can also search for online books in Google Book search or search for scholarly articles in Google Scholar.

Unfortunately, lots of the information in both Google Books and Google Scholar is not full text. What’s a student to do? Visit the Library Database Page at nvcc.edu/library/databases.htm to find full-text articles. These articles are invisible to Google. And you must be a NOVA student to use these resources. NOVA subscribes to over 200 article databases. And because the college subscribes in partnership with the other colleges and universities in Virginia, you’ll be using the same resources that students use at George Mason University, Virginia Tech and the University of Virginia.

Need help preparing for the math or English placement test? What if you need to take a CLEP test? Or maybe you want to join the military and need to take the ASVAB? Or go to pharmacology school? Campus libraries provide access to many test-preparation materials.

One advantage to the library’s online resources is that it’s all available from off campus, so you can work from home. Just log in with your NOVAConnect or BlackBoard username and password. LRC Live is a service that allows people to get help from a librarian via private online chat, 24 hours per day, seven days per week, through the Ask a Librarian page at nvcc.edu/library/ask.htm.

The library is online all the time. We live in a wired world. If you have a co-dependent relationship with your laptop or hand-held device, the library is here for you. You can read thousands of books online and watch tens of thousands of videos — just visit the library’s eBooks and eVideos page at nvcc.edu/library/ebooks.htm for streaming video and online books. NOVA’s campus libraries are on both Facebook and Twitter, and have blogs. See what other library secrets you can uncover.

Matt Todd manages the collection development activities at the Alexandria campus library and is president of the Virginia Library Association.

By: Contributing Author

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