web site: www.tntech.edu/library NOTE: Information on the web site may be more current than the following information.
A list of current hours for the academic year is posted annually on the Library website.
Monday - Thursday 7:45 a.m. - midnight
Friday 7:45 a.m. - 6:00 p.m.
Saturday 10:00 a.m. - 6:00 p.m.
Sunday 1:00 p.m. - midnight
Project and Exam Weeks 7:45 a.m. - 2:00 a.m.
Changes during holidays, vacation periods, and the summer sessions are posted near the front entrance.
Most all of the Library's holdings are housed on campus. The campus building is located on the corner of University Drive and Peachtree. A small collection is maintained at the Joe L. Evins Appalachian Center for Crafts. In the Tech campus library, there are over one million titles in various formats. The collection includes books, periodicals, monographic serials, newspapers, microforms, government documents, maps, atlases, pamphlets, manuscripts, audiocassettes, computer software, kits, slides, transparencies, phonograph records, videocassettes, compact audio discs, CD-ROMs, DVDs, and photographs.
Administratively, the Library comprises four Divisions: Public Services, Collection Management and Development, Media Center, and Bibliographic Control.
The Public Services Division consists of: (1) Circulation and Reserves, (2) Government Publications, Maps, and Microforms, (3) Interlibrary Loan, (4) Reference and Information Services, and (5) Special Collections, which includes Regional History and University Archives. The Division on Public Services strives to make services for our Distance Education faculty and students comparable to those provided on-campus.
The Circulation and Reserve Department is responsible for keeping a record of all books checked out of the circulation collection. The due date for all faculty checkouts is May 1, with a 15-day grace period.
Reserve materials are located at the circulation desk. There are four categories of reserve: one-hour, two-hour, one-day, and four-day. One-hour and two-hour reserves allows for inside library use only. One-day and four-day reserves allow for outside library use of reserve materials with no renewal. At the end of each semester unless otherwise specified, all reserve materials are removed from reserve. Materials that are the personal property of faculty are returned to them.
The Library is a depository for selected federal government publications. These are arranged by the Superintendent of Documents classification number and accessed through the various indexing tools. The classification numbers for the more popular publications are found in the Library’s online catalog. Electronic resources are cataloged and located in the Media Center. Many resources are available through the Internet. Assistance locating any federal publication resource, as well as individual and group instruction, is available upon request. Suggestions are accepted for materials needed but not currently selected. The publications are in open shelves and available to the University community.
The Library is a federal map depository. The map collection contains CIA maps and U.S. Geological Survey topographic maps for most states. The topographic maps are arranged alphabetically by state and then subarranged alphabetically by quadrangle name. As an aid to the users of the collection, the index map of each state is provided to show the quadrangle names.
The microform collection contains books, periodicals and papers on microfilm, microcard, microfiche and ultrafiche. The collection contains released Census data and Education Resources Information Center (ERIC) materials. ERIC collects, processes and makes available a wide range of educational documents. The library has the complete set of ERIC documents.
Interlibrary Loan
The Interlibrary Loan Department will borrow research materials not available in the Library or through one of its electronic services for TTU faculty. Forms are available at the Reference and Information Desk and on the Library’s website. There are charges only when the lending library charges Tech and the faculty member requesting the material has grant funds to cover the charges. An Interdepartmental Transfer Form (IDT) may be used for payment. The department mails materials requested by off-campus faculty to them; it is the responsibility of the borrower to return these materials to the Volpe Library.
The Interlibrary Loan Department acts in compliance with The Copyright Law (Title 17, U.S. Code) and relevant guidelines.
Reference and Information Services provides support for research in hard copy, electronic, local and remote-access resources for faculty and students located on and off campus. Departmental activities involve staffing a Reference and Information Desk, offering classes in research skills and resources, developing guides for research, and working with classroom faculty to develop library collections and services. The department maintains the Library’s website, through which faculty can get access to the Library’s catalog, many online databases, and other electronic services, like reference service and interlibrary loan.
Special Collections, located on Level One of the Volpe Library, comprises the Regional History section and the Archives section. The department seeks to identify, preserve, and organize materials of historical importance primarily relating to the Upper Cumberland region and the University, secondarily to the state of Tennessee, and thirdly, to the Southeast. Hours are 8:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Monday through Friday.
A librarian develops collections and provides services for the Regional History section. Many publications of regional historical interest are in the general circulating collection. A separate record of these items is maintained by the librarian. Materials requiring special care and protection are housed in Regional History and do not circulate.
The Archives, managed by an archivist, includes in its collections the University Archives, papers from the thirty years of public service of Joe L. Evins, photographs of Upper Cumberland subjects from the Harding Studio collections from the 1890’s to the 1960’s, and the papers of the late State Senator Tommy Burks.
Reference desk service, the online catalog, and access to online databases that provide citations and sometimes the full-text of articles are available on our website at www.tntech.edu/library. TTU Distance Education faculty and students can access these databases after creating a student computing account. Each TTU faculty member currently teaching an RODP class will be given a special database username and password for their students at the beginning of each semester.
A Document Delivery service is available to provide Volpe Library materials to most TTU Distance Education faculty and students. E-Forms for this service are located on the Library’s website. Materials are mailed by the Library to the borrower and the borrower is responsible for returning materials to the Volpe Library. Distance Education faculty and students can borrow materials from other TBR and UT libraries by using a TALC card. RODP and other TTU Distance Education faculty can obtain a TALC card by using an E-Form available on the Library’s website. RODP students can also find the form on the website of the TBR Virtual Library.
Tech Distance Education students and/or faculty can use the Library’s interlibrary loan services by completing a form at the Library’s Reference Desk or completing an online form found in the E-Forms section of the Library’s website. Materials are mailed by the Library to the borrower and the borrower is responsible for returning them to the Volpe Library
The Collection Management and Development Division consists of the Acquisitions Department, Periodicals Department, and Gifts and Exchange Department. All departments are located on Level One.
Collection Management acquires all library materials, except some of those in the Archives and Government Publications. It organizes, controls, and services the collections of monographs and periodicals, so the materials are available for use. It is the library's mission to provide the strongest collection for the support of University programs that available resources will permit. The Division seeks to identify long- and short-range needs of the Library's collections and to meet those needs cooperatively with the University faculty. The Division provides support for improved access to the library materials and more effective selection methods through the development of policy statements, collection assessment plans, and procedural guidelines in consultation with the faculty.
To effect this cooperative development of the collections, the library materials budget is allocated to academic colleges by the formula driven by variables of courses offered, credit hours, number of faculty members and number of students. Funds that become available from the Technology Access Fee are used to purchase electronic resources.
The Acquisitions Department is responsible for acquiring and accounting for materials and services selected fro addition to the Library’s collection. With the exception of journals, library materials are regularly ordered from August through March each year and at other times if funds permit.
Requests for library materials should be submitted to the departmental library liaison who authorizes the purchase of the materials and forwards the request to the Acquisitions Department.
Faculty members may obtain request cards from the departmental library liaisons. A completed card should include full name of the author, title, publisher, edition, date of publication, price and full name of the requestor. Requests for media items should include format such as VHS, CD-ROM, audio CD, slides or DVD. Requestors are encouraged to include brochures and catalogs with the request forms. If only partial bibliographic information is known, Acquisitions will assist in obtaining the additional information.
Materials needed for reserve or for research in progress should be marked "RUSH" and “NOTIFY REQUESTOR.” Rush orders incur additional expense and should be requested only in exceptional cases. Requests for reserve materials should also list the course number and the semester(s) the material will be on reserve. Generally, the Library purchases only one copy of each title; however, if additional copies are needed, the requestor may complete a form for consideration by the Library Collection Development Committee.
The acquiring, receiving, processing, record keeping, and binding of all periodicals are centralized in the Periodicals Department. Periodicals are acquired in all suitable formats (e.g. print, electronic or microform).
Periodical subscriptions are reviewed each year, usually during the months of April and May. The subscription lists are distributed to the departmental library liaisons who consult with their departmental faculty and make recommendations for revisions to the subscription lists.
Any revisions, additions or cancellations will become effective the following January. Recommendations for new journals are accepted from the departments with the understanding that a pre-existing subscription(s) of comparable cost must be cancelled.
Periodicals are arranged alphabetically by title and the unbound issues are shelved with the bound volumes.
The Periodicals Department distributes tables of contents from selected periodicals to faculty members who request them.
The gifts and unsolicited items received by the Library are sent to this department where they are acknowledged and recorded. All gifts are donated through the Friends of the Library Foundation unless otherwise stated. Gifts are accepted without commitment as to final disposition and with the understanding that they are not necessarily to be added to the collection. The Collection Development Committee, in cooperation with all library departments and in some cases with faculty members, determines the disposition of all items received as gifts. Gifts that are inappropriate are disposed of in one of two ways: returned to the donor or discarded. The Gifts and Exchange Department provides a monetary valuation for the donor, but does not assume any legal responsibility if the statement is used for tax or other purposes. The Library has endorsed and operates under the Statement on Appraisal of Gifts, developed by the Committee on Manuscripts Collections of the Rare Books and Manuscripts Section and approved by the Association of College and Research Libraries Board of Directors on February 1, 1973.
The Media Center, located on Level One, makes available non-print materials purchased with funds from the Library materials budget. These include audiocassettes, videocassettes, digital videodiscs, slides, kits, compact discs, CD-ROMs, phonograph records, transparencies, and computer disks. A limited amount of audiovisual equipment is available for classroom use. The circulation time for most equipment is the actual period of use.
Visual projection and audio-transmitting equipment are available in the Media Center for individual or group use. Faculty may reserve class viewing rooms for their audiovisual needs; requests should be placed as early in the semester as possible. Faculty may also reserve media titles in advance for use on a later date.
Any audiovisual materials, including faculty-owned items, may be placed on reserve in the Media Center for class assignments. The Media Center accepts items for reserve in compliance with U.S. Copyright Law, Title 17, U.S. Code.
Media staff members are available to provide assistance to faculty in selecting audiovisual materials for their specific teaching situations or in locating answers to reference questions pertaining to media materials. If needed materials are not available within the collection, the staff will search catalogs to locate possible titles on specific subject areas for preview and/or purchase.
As a faculty service, many subject bibliographies of the non-print holdings have been developed; electronic copies are available on the Media Center website.
The Media Center will deliver and pick-up media materials to faculty members upon request. This permits the faculty member to utilize the holdings when unable to visit the Media Center.
A microcomputer laboratory with PC and Macintosh machines networked to laser printers is available for faculty and student use. The computer lab is maintained by Information Technology Services.
The Media Center’s Room 125 houses a computer with special software, including Zoomtext, that is linked to a magnification system to assist those with disabilities. Room 127 houses a scanner and computer with Jaws software. These two machines are reserved for persons with special needs. Room 128 has a text-only magnification machine.
Some of the computers in the Media Center Computer Lab are placed on adjustable tables to accommodate wheelchairs. One has Zoomtext software; another has Jaws. Persons with disabilities have priority use of handicapped accessible work stations in the Computer Lab.
The Media Center houses a TV/Video Studio. The Studio has two broadcast-quality cameras, video/special effects and audio mixers, a titling machine, and ľ” SVHS, and professional VHS video tape recorders. It also has a professional VHS editing station. Faculty, staff, and students should contact the Media Center to reserve these facilities.
The Media Center can duplicate some audiovisual materials. Media duplication services are designed to support faculty academic and research projects. The Media Center duplicates items in compliance with U.S. Copyright Law, Title 17, U.S. Code.
The Media Center is the distribution center for the Closed Circuit Television System (CCTV) on campus. Videocassettes, ľ” tapes, and DVDs may be transmitted via the CCTV as copyright restrictions permit. A request for a CCTV transmission must be made at least 24 hours in advance.
Satellite program downlinks may be requested through the Media Center. The satellite taping and viewing process is done in conjunction with Telecommunications. Satellite programs may be viewed in the Media Center group viewing rooms, over the CCTV system, and/or may be taped for later use if permitted by the licensing agreement.
The Bibliographic Control Division is responsible for cataloging and classifying all library materials. Purchased materials are classified by the Library of Congress classification scheme and government publications by the Superintendent of Documents scheme. All materials are assigned Library of Congress Subject Headings for access by topic. The Division is responsible for providing access to the book and audiovisual media collections and some government publications; creating the machine-readable database of the Library's books, serials, media, government publications, and selected websites; maintaining the inventory records of the collections; and processing them physically for in-house use or for out-of-library circulation. Access to the collections is achieved through online computers available in the Library or over the World Wide Web. Searches to locate materials are made by author, title, subject, keywords, call numbers, etc. The system is subject to continual upgrades. The catalog is created according to standard library practice, accepted international rules, and authoritative sources of data.
The Bibliographic Control Division has access to over 52 million bibliographic records with its membership through SOLINET (Southeastern Library Network) in the OCLC (Online Computer Library Center) Network. This system aids in the cataloging of materials and in the interlibrary loan process.
[Source: Winston A. Walden, Director of Library Services]
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This page maintained by Carol Holley. Last Updated: September 12, 2003 |