WWU Libraries
Faculty librarians, library staff, and student assistants seek to inspire excellence in thought by bringing people and information together in innovative ways at the
WWU Libraries including Peterson Memorial Library on the College Place campus, the School of Nursing Library on the Portland campus, the MSW focused library on the Billings campus, and distance learning students. From each campus, librarians are available to facilitate student success by helping students learn information literacy concepts, connect to reference and research support, and access academic sources.
LEARN. DEVELOPING THE INFORMATION LITERATE STUDENT. Beginning with JumpStart, the university library’s Information Literacy Program supports student growth in research and encourages critical thought about information and learning processes throughout the student’s academic career. Closely aligned with the university’s general studies objectives, this program provides students with the opportunity to learn about the contextual authority of information, explore information creation as a process, consider the value of information, practice research as inquiry, scholarship as communication, and searching as exploration.
CONNECT. RESEARCH AND REFERENCE ASSISTANCE. Librarians, library staff, and library student assistants are dedicated to serving the information needs of students and faculty. They seek to facilitate student success through assistance in finding articles and other resources for papers, speeches, and other assignments through Research Guides, databases, face-to-face interactions, chat and email reference, and the LibAnswers Knowledge Base. More in-depth research consultation with faculty librarians is also available.
ACCESS. RESOURCES AND RESEARCH CENTRAL. Research Central, WWU’s online discovery system, connects students and faculty on all campuses to the WWU Libraries’ collections. The combined WWU libraries contain over 490,000 items, including books, eBooks, print and online journals, videos, DVDs, and streaming video. Over 100 full-text databases provide access to thousands of journal articles, academic videos, and reference resources. Subscriptions for many of the library’s databases are made possible by membership in library consortia such as the Adventist Library Information Cooperative (ALICE) and the Orbis Cascade Alliance. Off-campus access is available to current students and faculty with their university login.
Research Central also connects students to resources in the university’s Curriculum Library (School of Education), Hutto Patterson Research Center (history department), and the English department’s film literature collection.
Summit Borrowing in Research Central, made available through membership in the Orbis Cascade Alliance, offers direct access to over 28 million items, including books, eBooks, sound recordings, and films held by academic libraries throughout Washington, Oregon, and Idaho. College Place and Portland students, faculty, and staff may request Summit items online directly through Research Central. Material pick-up is available for the Peterson or Portland libraries and delivery time is typically five to seven business days.
Interlibrary Loan. For those items not available in the university’s collections or Summit, yet needed for either course work or faculty research, the university libraries offer an interlibrary loan service for resources available within the United States. Requested materials generally arrive within two weeks.
STUDY AREAS. Study spaces are available on every campus. Peterson Memorial Library offers online room reservations, accessible through the library’s website, for a number of its study areas.
CURRICULUM LIBRARY. Located in Smith Hall and operated by the School of Education, the Curriculum library contains K-12 textbooks, children’s literature and magazines, standardized tests, math and science manipulatives, games, puppets, laminator, computers, and maker space.