Library Services

The Mount Aloysius College Library offers a wide array of services to meet the needs of its many college patrons. The following library resources and services are available to all MAC students, faculty and staff.

Interlibrary loan (ILL) is available to request books that are unavailable in MountLink. Copies of periodical articles that are not available in the Mount Aloysius College Library may also be ordered through ILL. Be sure and check the Journal Finder on the Library Databases page before submitting your request, to determine if the article you need is already available in one of our databases.

The Library’s collection of DVDs and CDs are kept at the Circulation Desk. These items may be checked out by students for up to three days at a time with no renewals. Faculty and staff may check out these items for one week with renewals upon request.

A television equipped with a VHS and DVD player is available for use by those individuals who wish to view items that have been placed on Reserve and which do not circulate.  Check with the Circulation Desk for this service.

Students may borrow laptop computers. The loan period is 30 days.  Copies of the laptop policy form are available at the Circulation desk.

This equipment is available at the Circulation Desk.

Reserves are items (books, articles, videos, etc.) that Mount Aloysius students need for class assignments. Professors have asked that these materials be placed on reserve in a special area behind the circulation desk. Reserve materials are assigned special loan periods. They are: two hour library-use-only, overnight reserve, three-day reserve, one-week reserve and thirty-day reserve. A Mount Aloysius College student ID is required to check out reserves.

Practice Presentation Room – This room features a 42-inch monitor that can be connected to a laptop and which will display whatever is on the laptop’s screen. Students can use this room to display presentations, pdfs, or even movies. Many use it to practice group or individual presentations. Like the study room, this room is available on a first come, first served basis.

Study Rooms – There are three quiet rooms on the first floor of the Library. The rooms are ideal for students who need to study together or who are working on a class project. Each study room is available on a first-come, first-served basis with faculty receiving first priority. Students cannot reserve these rooms in advance. No sign-in for a study room is required.

Please note: the practice presentation and study rooms are sometimes used for testing sessions, Learning Commons workshops, Supplemental Instruction Sessions, and meetings for faculty and staff. When possible, staff will place signs outside rooms that are reserved for these purposes.

Faculty Resources

Information Literacy Seminars are available on a variety of levels and are tailored to the specific needs of the course and assignment. To schedule one of these instructional sessions, instructors can contact their Liaison Librarian for more information.

Library classes can be scheduled as far in advance of the session as the instructor prefers. To insure your preferred date, make your request as soon as possible. Seminars must be requested at least 24 hours in advance.

Library resources include professional development workshops for faculty and staff. These workshops cover a wide range of topics relevant to teaching and learning.

This form is used to request specific information about a student’s tutoring record. Please allow 3-5 days for processing. Due to FERPA restrictions information may not be available for all students. If you are requesting 20 or more reports, please contact Cara Tomallo directly. Otherwise, submit one form per request.

Subject Liaisons/Librarians can help you with course specific information literacy sessions, subject specific reference questions, orders for books and other materials in your subject area, and generally keep you informed about Library resources and services. While you may contact any Library staff member with a question, think of your Liaison as your individual go-to person for anything library related.

Rob Stere
  • Allied Health and Nursing Fields
    • Medical Assist, Medical Imaging and Radiology, Physical Therapy and Nursing
  • Social Sciences and Professional Studies
    • Business & Accounting, Information Technology, Psychology, Criminology and Legal Research
Maggie Lykens
  • Sciences
    • Science and Math
  • Humanities, Education, and Social Sciences
    • English, Art/Music/Theatre, History, Geography, Political Science, Sociology, Philosophy and Religion, Education, ASL/EI
    • EN110 and EN111 for instruction requests

Mount Aloysius College professors can bring their own class material to the library in order to be put on reserve. Or they can call the circulation desk and request certain materials to be removed from the general circulating collection and be placed on reserve. After providing full name, course number, and course name, the book, article, or DVD in question will be placed in a special area behind the circulation desk. Reserve materials are assigned special loan periods. They are: two hour library-use-only, overnight reserve, three-day reserve, one-week reserve and thirty-day reserve. All Mount Aloysius College students must bring their ID when checking out or viewing reserved material.

Workshops for Students

The Library Learning Commons provides academic support workshops for research, tutoring, and technology assistance, helping students to achieve academic excellence in their studies.

Writing Tips

1. Brainstorm possible topic ideas

  • Consider your personal interests.
  • Engage in conversations in class or with classmates.
  • Read articles in encyclopedias or dictionaries and review class readings.
  • Browse recent issues of journals or magazines from the Current Periodicals shelves, located to the left of the Circulation Desk when you enter the Library.
  • Browse the shelves for books on your subject (see the Library of Congress Classification System listing to know where to look).

2. Review assignment requirements

  • What kind of assignment is it – 5 minute oral presentation, 10 page paper, 50 page paper?
  • How much information do you need?
  • Does it need to be recent information?
  • What types of publications do you want to read – newspaper articles, books, journal articles, diaries, trade publications?
  • What formats do you need – visual, audio, printed, electronic?
  • Is point of view an issue? Do you need opinions?
  • How much time do you have?

3. List keyword to define your topic

  • State your research topic as a question.
  • Think about the significant terms, concepts, and keywords that describe your topic. These terms will become the key for searching for information about your subject in library catalogs, online databases, and other resources.
  • Sample keywords for research topic “How did New Deal programs influence the arts in America?”:
    • New Deal
    • United States
    • Depression
    • Art
    • Federal Aid to the Arts

4. Gather background information on your topic

It’s hard to get started if you don’t know much about your topic. Do some general reading in things like encyclopedias and subject-specific dictionaries to get an overview of the topic. This is also a great first step towards refining your topic.

This guide has been adapted, with permission, for Mount Aloysius College from the Duke University Libraries “Choosing a Topic.”

If you have questions about the proper citation of any source types, consult with an appropriate style manual or our research guide. The manuals listed below are available at the Reference Desk:
•Chicago Manual of Style: 16th Edition  • A Manual for Writer of Research Paper, Theses, and Dissertations: Chicato Style for Students and  Researchers: 7th Edition (Turabian)  • MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers: 8th Edition  • Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association: 6th Edition.
• Scientific Style and Format:: The CSE manuals for Authors, Editors, and Publishers: 7th Edition (Turabian)

A great online source for citing in all styles is the OWL at Purdue.  Check out their pages for MLA, APA and Chicago. There are other useful resources on this site for general writing assistance.

Click here for the Connections (LA101) Research Guide.

Research Guides are available on the many subjects and more guides will be added as developed.

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