Celebrate Banned Books Week!

 

This week the library will be celebrating the nationally recognized

Banned Books Week.

Why Banned Books Week?

Held during the last week of September since 1982, Banned Books Week not only encourages readers to examine challenged literary works, but also promotes intellectual freedom in libraries, schools, and bookstores. Its goal is "to teach the importance of our First Amendment rights and the power of literature, and to draw attention to the danger that exists when restraints are imposed on the availability of information in a free society."

Often book challenges are motivated by a desire to protect children from “inappropriate” sexual content or “offensive” language. The following were the top three reasons cited for challenging materials as reported to the Office of Intellectual Freedom:

1.     The material was considered to be "sexually explicit"

2.     The material contained "offensive language"

3.     The materials was "unsuited to any age group"

 

 

American libraries are one of the cornerstones of our democracy. Libraries are for everyone, everywhere.

Read an old favorite or a new banned book this week.


Stop by and check out the list of the Top 10 Banned Books of 2013 at our Banned Books Display!
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Welcome to Fall 2014

Welcome back, MCU students! We hope you're as fired up as the Library is to start the new academic year. To get the most out of your classes, be sure to visit the Library often throughout the semester. The Library is the place to:

• Get individual research assistance from librarians
• Borrow a textbook from course reserves (books your professors require you to read for class)
• Find print books and e-books that will help you in writing great papers
• Discover articles from scholarly sources on your topics
• Watch informative films about the subjects you are researching
• Keep up to date with the latest news locally, nationally, and globally
• Find a quiet place to study (for group study, we encourage you to use the Commons)
• Check out something fun to read from our recreational reading and graphic novel collections 

New Fall Hours:

See you in the Library!

Summer at Marymount California University Library

While you are studying abroad in Greece or just on vacation, the library will remain open for Summer session. We will be open all Summer long, so be sure to stop by and say hello! 

New Summer Hours:

Also, be sure to greet Katie when you see her in the library. Katie is our student-worker for the Summer. She will be managing multiple projects throughout the Summer months for the library. Below, Katie can be seen advertising our Summer reading display in the library.

Enjoy your Summer, we will see you in the Fall!

Finals Week @ MCU Library

Finals week is upon us once again at Marymount California University

The library would like to wish our students the best of luck on their upcoming final exams. We also want to be the first to give best wishes to the graduating seniors. We wish you more than luck in your future professional and academic pursuits and have enjoyed your presence over the past four years. The library also wants to wish good luck to our students who are planning to transfer to other institutions, we know you will go on to do great things! Finally, we want to acknowledge the great work that our student workers have done this year, without them none of our success would be possible.

 In reference to finals week, the library will be keeping these hours:

Mon - Thur 8-8

Friday 8-4

Saturday 11-5

Sunday 11-8

The library would also like to thank you for your participation in the annual library survey. We received  a record number of responses this year and we are already using your feedback to improve library services going forward into the future.

As noted by your responses to this year's survey, our small library can get noisy from time to time. We realize due to the nature of the library's size this can be inescapable at times. That being said, we ask all of our students to be considerate of noise levels and respectful of others during this stressful time. If you have plans for collaborative and/or group study sessions, feel free to utilize the student commons and empty classrooms in Cecilia Hall for studying purposes. In accordance with your requests the library hopes to provide an atmosphere and environment that ensures all are well-prepared for finals, and we appreciate your help in keeping the noise levels down so that everyone has an opportunity to properly study and ready themselves for their end of term exams.

Thanks again from your friends in the library and good luck with finals!

What's New @ MCU Library

Welcome Back 

Spring Breakers!

We are now nearing the home stretch of the semester and academic year. Keep up the good work! While you have been away enjoying your brief vacation from school, your MCU librarians have remained hard at work preparing the library for your return. While away the library has undergone a few changes. This month we are transitioning away from the field of Psychology and are now highlighting the theme of Animation. This emphasis includes a display in the front of the library containing a variety of materials relating to the production, history, and business of Animation. Our display includes a variety of library materials including eBooks and print books currently available in the catalog.

Some of the featured ebooks in our display include the the Animated Movie Guide, the Art of Stop-Motion Animation, and Hollywood Cartoons. You can find these titles by clicking on the links or by searching in our card catalog under the ebooks tab. Print materials that are available include Animated Cartoons, the World History of Animation, and the Biography of Walt Disney. These titles are available in the library for checkout along with many more covering the whole spectrum of Animation.

Along with the new display the library has included two more databases into our library collection. We now have access to American Chemical Society (ACS) and Wiley Online Library. Both of these databases can be found under our e-resources tab on the library homepage.

American Chemical Society

 American Chemical Society is one of the world's premier scientific research organizations and one of the leading sources of authoritative scientific research. The ACS database gives us access to over 60 scientific journals spanning such fields as Chemistry, Biology, Environmental Science, and Biotechnology.

Wiley Online Library

Wiley Online Library offer's one of the world's broadest and deepest multidisciplinary collections in the Sciences. It contains online resources in the academic fields of life, health, social and physical sciences. The collection gives the library access to over four million articles from 1,500 journals, 14,000 ebooks, and hundreds of reference works.

The MCU library is also back to our original library hours starting March 22, 2014.

Spring Semester: Mon-Thurs 8-8 / Fri 8-4 / Sat-Sun 11-5

If you have any questions be sure to contact one of our librarians via phone, email, or in person.

Contact
Email: library@marymountcalifornia.edu
Phone: (310) 303-7260

Location
Oceanview Campus
Cecilia Hall 200

The Happiness Index Project has arrived at Marymount

"Happiness comes when your work and words are of benefit to yourself and others." 

-Buddha

This month the library is celebrating "Happiness." This is in support of the Happiness Index Project (HIP), an interdisciplinary research initiative Marymount California University is conducting on the well-being of the people that reside in Lake County, CA. This initiative will utilize Marymount students and faculty in field research efforts aiming to identify metrics of well-being for Lake County residents assessing their overall quality of life and regional identity. The initiative beginning this Spring will continue through 2014 and beyond.

Display on Happiness

Happiness Studies LibGuide

In support of this endeavor the library has focused on Happiness Studies by incorporating a "Happiness display" showcasing some of the library resources we currently offer. The library has also created a Happiness Library Guide highlighting the discipline of Happiness Studies spanning multiple academic fields. This guide lists print and electronic resources relevant to the various academic fields and can be found on the library website.

Books: Featured below to the left is one of our 300 books in the library covering the subject of Happiness. The book, Happiness and Education represents just one of the multitude of books available in the library print collection.


eBooks: The library hosts over 85,000 eBooks online through multiple eBook providers. One example on the right from our extensive eBook Collection is The Pursuit of Happiness: an economy of well-being. This title along with many others is available for viewing through the library catalog.


e-Resources: Along with our extensive book collections the library subscribes to multiple online databases and journals containing millions of accessible research articles. Databases that might be relevant for the study of Happiness include Academic Search Premier, PsycARTICLES, ProQuest Psychology Journals, and Salem Health. The library also provides databases with statistical information such as Statistica and Statistical Insight. Finally, the library has access to online video content through Films on Demand. A TED talk by Dan Gilbert titled, Why are we Happy? Why aren't we Happy? is one such example. All of these resources are available through the library website.

If you have any questions or need help in your research visit a librarian during our hours of operation, call us at (310) 303-7260,  or email us at library@marymountcalifornia.edu.