Last updated on March 9, 2019
By Katelyn Marshall
Volunteer Community College’s Thigpen Library has many available resources.
“They’re all on the website, where you should always start as a student to find them,” said Vol State’s Director of Library Services and Provider of Research assistant Sarah Smith.
“We have about 45,000 books in our print collection and they represent all disciplines, but we also have electronic resources that provide the bulk of resources for students’ academic research needs. We have millions of articles and more than 300,000 e-books, so it’s a lot more robust in our online collection in terms of what we have to offer, especially for the students who might be at a distance from the main campus in Gallatin,” said Smith.
Smith said, Vol State’s online collection helps students who are taking online classes only or students who are at other locations to be able to access academic resources for their studies.
Some other resources, Smith added, are “some things you might be most familiar with specific databases, such as ProQuest Research Library, our largest database and it’s disciplinary so it offers the full text access for any topic a student would want to research.”
Smith also said that the library curated guides for students that provide select databases that is recommended for a topic of discipline.
Smith said that “research guides” is the most valuable resource to students. It includes a citation style guide, which helps students find some tools that can help them cite more efficiently.
Another resource provided is called NoodleTools, a citation management software.
“It basically works through the process of entering in the components of a citation, and then allows you to convert it quickly into a word document and collect a group of these references or Works Cited in one place, and also use it to work on a collaborative project with other students or as needed to fulfill faculty members’ project needs for assignments,” said Smith.
The newest resource Thigpen has, according to Smith, is the Kanopy, a streaming-video programming used in film and some sociology classes, the R-2 library, the Health Sciences and the sciences.
The R-2 library are digital e-books.
These resources are being used all the time, said Smith, who recommends the resources as a “starting point for any assignment.”
“Students and faculty use the Thigpen library resources all the time,” Smith said. “All students should use these resources as a starting point for any assignment, especially the use of research guides,” Smith encouraged.
“One thing we don’t consider a resource but is an important resource for the students at the Gallatin campus is space at the Thigpen library,” Smith explained. “It is for concentrated studies and for group projects, so we’re proud that we added two new study rooms and a lounge, and you can find the room with silent study components, allowing students to focus.”
“Libraries at other locations have smaller space and population, but we share in common, people, so having librarians available to assist the students with any library research needs and technology that can be checked out to help with students is the most important resource we provide to the people and answer any questions students might have, whatever it might be, that is usually important to us,” Smith said.
“24/7 online, chat, text, research support can be used as well, a great way to access the people,” Smith said. “When we talk about resources, we typically think things, but the most important resource is the library staff that can help a student.”
Sarah Lannom, a student at Vol State said, the Thigpen Library database resources is what she uses the most to look up different articles that are needed for research papers.
“Citations provided for papers using copy and paste helps a lot and I do recommend students to take advantage of these resources,” Lannom said.
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