Brady's Roadhouse

The Eberly Library staff has worked to make library resources more accessible to students. Over the course of the  2020-2021 academic year, the staff has continued to add new and update old digital bases and expand features on their digital catalog.

The process of improving the library sites is ongoing, but recently there have been changes due to the COVID-19 pandemic. One of the new resources that the library has is Artstor.

“Artstor is a database of thousands and thousands of works of art,” Rebecca Rosser, Eberly Library’s electronic services librarian and 2016 Waynesburg University graduate, said. “So very high quality pictures of different paintings and sculptures from a vast array of museums and different collections.”  

Some of the images that Artstor features are in the public domain, so they are free for anyone to use. However, Artstor is only available for a limited time through Eberly Library.

In an effort to make digital resources more attainable, the EBSCO database that the library already subscribes to has added new features and content.

It’s now easier to search the content on EBSCO thanks to the new EBSCO Discovery Service (EDS). EDS will search through both the EBSCO and Eberly Library resources to give the maximum number of results, and the search can be done right from the search bar on the Eberly Library site.

Those results can be refined by a number of categories, including type of source, date published and if that resource physically is available in the library or not.  The resources provided also include a new range of ebooks.

“We have 150,000 electronic books,” John Thompson, the electronic resources librarian for the Eberly Library, said. “Since we’re sort of driving people towards EBSCO, it would make sense for us to buy the collection of electronic books sources by EBSCO.”

Ebooks on the EBSCO database can be downloaded and printed with limitations, and the ebooks on there lean to the academic side. Searches lead right to the part of the book that has the most relevant information.

As well as expanding ebooks, the library has a selection of audiobooks that can be found under the “books” page on the Eberly Library site.

There have been changes to the Eberly Library catalog site as well. There are links to more information outside of just library books, including EBSCO databases and the library hours.  Students can now sign into their school account and see the books they have checked out in the past and present, see overdue books and fines and make different lists of books they are interested in.

Students can also renew books online instead of having to come into the library to do so. If a student is looking to check out a book that is specific for a class, the library has a list of books reserved for a range of classes. The information about the book is given, and that information can be printed to send to a mobile device via QR code.

Since students need to log in to view information about their personal library history, that information is private to just the student. To access the new and improved catalog, students can go to the library mainpage, click on “Books” on the left hand menu, then go to “Eberly Library Catalog.”

For more information, students can visit the Eberly Library website at https://waynesburg.libguides.com/eberly, email the library at eberlylibrary@outlook.com or follow @EberlyLibraryWU on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter.