Additional Services and Resources

Watch this video to learn more about how to navigate the library website: 

In addition, there are more areas in the library that you can listen too! 

 

Behind the IT help desk, take the stairs down to find our Library's Map Collection, which includes historical maps of cities and countries from all over the world, government scientific maps, like topographic and geologic maps, as well as travel and tourism maps. The Map Collection also holds atlases, scholarly books on geography and cartography, and detailed aerial photography of historical southern California. The Map Curators can print and scan maps for free, and can help with Geographic Information Systems software, available on the two public workstations.

Visit the Map Collection website for more information. 

The Learning Commons extends throughout the 1st floor of the Library and offers students comfortable seating for individual reading and group collaboration. Feel free to move the furniture around to meet your individual or group study needs. The relaxed seating near the north window is a popular space for those who wish to work and read by natural light.

There are also many places for charging your personal device throughout the Learning Commons. The tall, counter-height tables and smaller square tables located in the center of the Learning Commons and in the Library lobby provide you with a place to charge as you work. Charging lockers allow students to recharge devices between classes. Simply set your password using one of the secure, self-serve locker units. It's common for students to come to the Library to study, relax, and recharge their devices in these areas of the Library.

Further to the west of the Learning Commons, there are numerous additional charging stations and collaborative media tables where students can screen share by plugging in their device into the large monitor for group work.

Finally, across from the Reference Desk, the Learning Commons makes available a Best Sellers book collection with popular fiction and non-fiction titles, the Reference collection, and print periodicals and newspapers. In addition to print reference, periodicals and newspapers, the Library offers many electronic resources that you can find using OneSearch.

The University Library Learning Commons list of resources. 

Interlibrary Loan is a service that locates articles and books not available in the Library. Once you submit a request for a book or article, Interlibrary Loan will locate the item and request it from another library (if available). There is no charge for obtaining materials within the CSUN Interlibrary Loan “network”, which includes the other 22- campuses, a host of reciprocal libraries, and consortia. Once an item is available to use, you will be notified by email and can pick your items up at the Guest Services Desk or Lockers located outside the Library.

The average time required to receive a routing item can vary between 5 and 10 working days. Time depends on availability of an item, location of lending library, and speed of delivery. CSU+ is very similar to Interlibrary Loan and has recently expanded to libraries outside the CSU system. The difference is this service allows users to track their loan and article requests from their library account in OneSearch. If the item you want to borrow is from one of the other California State Universities the average time to receive this item is 3 business days.

To access the service please Login to Interlibrary Loan. 

Interlibrary Loan has their direct contact information and FAQs. 

 

The Automated Storage and Retrieval System, also known as the ASRS, is a book storage system made up of more than 13,000 steel bins, housed on a rack structure that occupies 8,000 square-foot room reaching 40-feet. The Library's collection contains more than 1.4 million items and the ASRS stores approximately half of the collection. Books and items that are stored in the ASRS can easily be requested through OneSearch. Make sure to sign-into OneSearch to get the option to request the book. Once an item is requested an automatic crane, or a “robotic arm,” moves down the aisle where the book is housed. The bin with the requested book is located and retrieved by the robotic arm and delivered to the area where Guest Services employees can access the book. Then you can pick up the book at Guest Services. The process of requesting and receiving a book from the ASRS usually takes less than 10 minutes.

The ASRS is a reliable and resilient system. During the 1994 earthquake, almost all of the books housed on open shelves fell to the floor. Many of the books had been damaged or ruined due to the severity of the earthquake. However, no books or bins located in the ASRS were damaged during the earthquake. In addition to assisting the Library in managing approximately half of our collection, the ASRS also frees up Library space for students to study.

History of the University Library ASRS. 

 

 

This is the end of the module, select next and complete the Google Quiz to get credit for you U100 class.