Friday, 5/9/2008

The Texas State Technical College Waco Library offers students more than 61,000 books and over 350 periodical titles, including general interest magazines, technical and professional journals, and newspapers. Also available are private study rooms, drafting tables, TTY, a photocopier, microfiche readers and a reader/printer, and more than 2,000 videos and 500 DVDs.

The TSTC Waco library also houses a computer laboratory that provides software programs and applications for student use. The lab has 24 computers with Internet access and popular software.

The Library is a member of TexShare, a statewide consortium of libraries, which was founded to share and conserve library materials. TexShare allows TSTC students to check materials out of other TexShare member libraries, upon issue of a TexShare card at the circulation desk in the Library.

The TSTC Waco Library currently subscribes to four online databases: Campus Research/WestLaw, EBSCOhost, FirstSearch, and ProQuest. Three of the databases to which the TSTC Waco Library subscribes -- Campus Research/WestLaw, EBSCOhost, and ProQuest -- provide off-campus as well as on-campus access to TSTC Waco students and employees. Due to subscription restrictions, the FirstSearch database may only be used on campus.

Campus Research/WestLaw is actually two databases: Campus Research is a news database and WestLaw is the law database. However, both databases are accessed through a common portal.

You may be interested in looking at our tutorial, Searchpath, on how to use online databases (finding articles) or to have a virtual tour of our library.

Students should always adhere to the specific requirements of their instructors regarding allowable sources for research papers. Some sources from the Internet, such as Wikipedia entries, may not be allowable. The library staff can assist students in finding full-text articles, in print or on-line, from scholarly journals when those are required.

For students wanting to know the latest campus happenings, we have the latest news and information for you. We hope you will visit the Library next time you are on campus.