The Library Computer Policy is as follows:
Users must:

• Follow all Library regulations and Conduct Policy.
• Present a valid, updated BSCC Student ID to the library staff member on duty at the front desk. Permission to use Library computers cannot be granted until the ID is presented. Student ID's can be obtained in the Office of Student Services.
• Students are limited to 1 hour of computer usage per day. If additional time is required, students should request additional time from the librarian on duty. Extra time will be granted if machines are available.
• Print legibly all areas of the sign in/out form before using Library computers.
• Use computers for course/school related work only.
• Remain quiet and respectful of other student's right to use Library computers.

Users cannot:

• Chat or date online - which includes instant messaging and viewing pictures/profiles from web sites such as Xanga, MySpace, etc.
• Go to, use, or surf any pornographic, offensive, or racist web sites.
• Play games online.
• Download any programs, watch, or listen to music, or watch non-educational videos.
• Shop online which includes eBay, online catalogs, and other online auction activities.
• Printing is 10 cents per copy. The items printed must be course related. Unauthorized printing is a violation of this policy.
• Bring any type of food or drink, including water, into the Library. All food and liquids must be consumed or discarded before entering the Library. This includes but not limited to bottled and canned drinks. No exceptions!
• Share computers or tutor other students while in the computer area or Library. Please be considerate of others.

Students are not allowed to download pictures and ring tones from or onto their cell phones in the Library.
Library staff will strictly adhere to a three strike policy. A Bevill State Community College Incident Report will be completed and filed for each violation of the above policy. A student's Library privileges can and will be suspended indefinitely upon the completion and filing of that particular student's third Incident Report. No exceptions for any student, for any reason, will be made. Failure to follow the guidelines of the Library's policy and the College policy will result in the suspension of computer usage. A copy of your signed and dated Library Computer Policy Agreement will be kept on file in the Library for future reference.

If material you are looking for is not available at the BSCC Libraries, we can try to request that material for you from another library by interlibrary loan (ILL). Interlibrary loans are available for BSCC students, faculty, and staff. Community patrons will not be able to use the ILL option.

Both books and periodical articles are available through ILL. However, it must first be determined that the item is not available at BSCC. Full-text periodical articles available through one of our online vendors cannot be requested through ILL. You must print those out either at the library or at home, if you have the capability. You will be charged 5 cents per page for each periodical article obtained via ILL.

Some libraries may charge a fee for interlibrary loans. That fee will be passed on to the patron. Please let staff know before placing interlibrary loans if you are not willing to pay the additional fee.

Interlibrary loans can take approximately 1-2 weeks to arrive, depending on where the lending library is.

 When ILLs arrive, you will be contacted by phone or e-mail.

 Your material will be held for one week.  After a week, if the material is not picked up, it is sent back to the lending library.  

Due dates on ILLs vary, usually anywhere from two weeks to a month.  We have to make sure that we return them to the lending library before the due date.

If at any time you would like assistance with searching for interlibrary loan material or placing an online hold, feel free to contract the library staff on your campus:

Fayette Campus		(205) 932-3221 ext. 5136
Hamilton Campus		(205) 921-3177 ext. 5336
Jasper Campus		(205) 387-0511 ext. 5748
Sumiton Campus		(205) 648-3271 ext. 5241
Pickens Co. Educational Center		(205) 367-8860 ext. 5633

Bevill State Community College has several professional librarians on staff to meet your reference needs. In house reference services include (both individualized and group) library orientations and tours, computer instruction, database instruction, and assistance in searching for information on various subjects.

Library Online
In order to extend the outreach of the Bevill State Community College Libraries, a Library online is available for all BSCC students, faculty, staff, and community patrons. The Library Helpline is a service designed to answer quick reference questions. The Library invites its patrons to e-mail questions to the following address: www.bscc.edu, and a professional librarian will respond with the appropriate answer during normal business hours.

Fayette Campus		samiddleton@bscc.edu
Hamilton Campus		tsanders@bscc.edu
Jasper Campus		rwhitten@bscc.edu
Sumiton Campus		twebb@bscc.edu
Pickens Co. Educational Center		mkimbrell@bscc.edu

1. Go to BSCC home page, www.bscc.edu
2. Select the link for the "Library” and choose your library
3. Select "Library Catalog."
4. Enter words or phrase or other search terms in the search box. Choose type of search and select the "Search" button.

A - General Works
B - Philosophy, Psychology, Religion
C - Auxiliary Sciences of History
D - History (General) and History of Europe
E - History: America
F - History: America
G - Geography, anthropology, Recreation
H - Social Sciences
J - Political Science
K - Law
L - Education
M - Music and Books on Music
N - Fine Arts
P - Language and Literature
Q - Science
R - Medicine
S - Agriculture
T - Technology
U - Military Science
V - Naval Science
Z - Bibliography, Library Science, Information Resources (General)

STARTING OUT
It's always a good idea to THINK about your search before you begin. Create a search strategy in your head by asking yourself this question:
What do I want to do?

• Browse?
• Locate a specific piece of information?
• Retrieve everything I can on the subject?

Your answer will determine how you conduct your search and what tools you will use.

• If you're browsing and trying to determine what's available in your subject area, start out by selecting a subject directory like Yahoo! Then, enter your search keyword(s) into one of the mega-search engines, such as Ixquick, just to see what's out there.
• If you're looking for a specific piece of information, go to a major search engine such as Fast (All the Web) Search or Google, or to a specialized database such as Voice of the Shuttle (for humanities research) or the Bureau of the Census (for statistics).
• If you want to retrieve everything you can on a subject, try the same search on several search engines. Also, don't forget to check resources off the Web, such as books, newspapers, journals and other print reference sources.

DEFAULTS, AND OTHER STUFF
In your search statement, if you enter more than one keyword without using any accompanying sign, mark or symbol (see Lesson 7 and Lesson 8 for explanations and examples), the search engine will automatically add either the AND or the OR conjunction to link your search terms together. This could radically alter your search in unexpected ways. Be sure you know the defaults (basic settings) of the search engine you are using, as this could explain why your search results may not be what you expected them to be.
Strange things can happen for other reasons as well. Sometimes the relevance ranking systems that search engines use (and which they are reluctant to reveal), can throw off your search by ignoring some of the words in your search statement. This might happen when the search engine recognizes your string of separate keywords as a phrase in its list of pre-determined phrases or when it is responding to its own internal list of "stop words" (see below). Whatever the case, you may never know the real reason why your search retrieves so many irrelevant responses.

STOP WORDS
Stop words are words that many search engines DON'T stop for when searching texts and titles on the web. In fact, in order to cut down on response time, these engines routinely ignore stop words, i.e., small and common words, such as parts of speech (adverbs, conjunctions, prepositions, or forms of "to be"). Examples include: a, an, and, as, at, be, if, into, it, of, on, or, the, to, with, etc. Not all search engines recognize the same stop words. In addition, their lists can and do change frequently. If you initiate a search at a site that maintains a list of stop words and you type any of those words into your search statement (even in phrases surrounded by quotes), they will be ignored. The exception to this is the Google search engine, which has a stop word list but recognizes stop words within phrases surrounded by quotation marks, e.g., "to be or not to be" or "what you see is what you get".

CREATING A SEARCH STATEMENT
When structuring your query, keep the following tips in mind:

• Be specific
      EXAMPLE:    Dublin Core metadata
• Whenever possible, use nouns and objects as keywords
      EXAMPLE:    Hurricane Hugo
• Put most important terms first in your keyword list; to ensure that they will be searched, put a +sign in front of each one
      EXAMPLE:    +hybrid +electric +gas +vehicles
• Use at least three keywords in your query
      EXAMPLE:    vitamins drugs interaction
• Combine keywords, whenever possible, into phrases
      EXAMPLE:    "search engine tutorial"
• Avoid common words, e.g., green, unless they're part of a phrase
      EXAMPLE:    "green tea"
• Think about words you'd expect to find in the body of the page, and use them as keywords
      EXAMPLE:    anorexia bulimia eating disorder
• Write down your search statement and revise it before you type it into a search engine query box
      EXAMPLE:    "college savings plans" "Section 529" +state +sponsored

ASSIGNMENT:
Select a search engine, and try searching the following keywords in this order:

• Woodstock
• Woodstock 1969
• Woodstock 1969 Grateful Dead

• Use the plus (+) and minus (-) signs in front of words to force their inclusion and/or exclusion in searches.
  EXAMPLE:   +anorexia -bulimia
  (NO space between the sign and the keyword)
• Use double quotation marks (" ") around phrases to ensure they are searched exactly as is, with the words side by side in the same order.
  EXAMPLE:   "Bye bye Miss American Pie"
  (Do NOT put quotation marks around a single word.)
• Put your most important keywords first in the string.
  EXAMPLE:   +hybrid electric gas vehicle
• Type keywords and phrases in lower case to find both lower and upper case versions. Typing capital letters will usually return only an exact match.
  EXAMPLE:   president retrieves both president and President
• Use truncation and wildcards (e.g., *) to look for variations in spelling and word form.
  EXAMPLE:    librar* returns library, libraries, librarian, etc.
• Combine phrases with keywords, using the double quotes and the plus (+) and/or minus (-) signs.
  EXAMPLE:   +"lung cancer" +bronchitis -smoking
  (In this case, if you use a keyword with a +sign, you must put the +sign in front of the phrase as well. When searching for a phrase alone, the +sign is not necessary.)
• When searching a document for the location of your keyword(s), use the "find" command on that page.
• Know the default (basic) settings your search engine uses (OR or AND). This will have an effect on how you configure your search statement because, if you don't use any signs (+, - " "), the engine will default to its own settings.
• Know whether or not the search engine you are using maintains a stop word list. If it does, don't use known stop words in your search statement. Also, consider trying your search on another engine that does not recognize stop words.

• In Boolean searches, always enclose OR statements in parentheses.
  EXAMPLE:   "financial aid" AND (college OR university)
• Always use CAPS when typing Boolean operators in your search statements. Most engines require that the operators (AND, OR, AND NOT/NOT) be capitalized. Other engines will accept either CAPS or lower case, so you're on safe ground if you stick to CAPS.
  EXAMPLE:   "eating disorder" AND (bulimia OR anorexia)