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Materials
Just a few of the
materials available in the Reference Department include: ValueLine,
MorningStar, NADA new and used car price indexes, Standard & Poors,
Consumer Reports magazine and Annual Buying Guide, and more than 2,700 books in the reference collection, including
encyclopedias, dictionaries, atlases, local history materials, medical
references, and many more.
Book Holds/Reserves
and Interlibrary Loans
If the particular
book that you want is currently checked out or otherwise unavailable,
the reference department can put a hold (or reserve) on that book for
you. When the book is available, the library will give you a call and
let you know it is on hold at the circulation desk for you and will be
held for 5 business days. If the Crete Library does not own a book that
you want, we can order it from one of the 80 libraries within the
Metropolitan Library System (MLS) and have it delivered to our library
for your convenience. Patrons can also access the entire collection of
the MLS through the SWAN online catalog and place their own holds. We
can only place holds for Crete Library patrons and books will only be
delivered to Crete for pick-up. Unless books are new and/or in
high-demand, interlibrary loans usually take about a week to arrive.
For more difficult
to find books, the reference staff has access to I-Share, the state-wide
online catalog of the university libraries, and FirstSearch’s WorldCat,
a database of holdings of libraries throughout the nation, and even
worldwide. We always search for the books from in-state libraries first,
as there is no charge for loans from these libraries. If the patron then
wishes to search further, a $3 charge can secure books from out-of-state
if necessary. Of course, books from outside the MLS system take longer
to be delivered. Both of these databases can be accessed by patrons
either at the library or from home with Internet access. See below
(I-Share or FirstSearch) to find out how you can search these databases,
ask how at the Reference Desk, or give us a call (708-672-8017).
Please be aware
that the more information you can provide the reference staff (correct
author, title, date of publication, etc.) the easier it will be for us
to find the exact item for which you are searching.
Reader’s Advisory/NoveList
Stumped about what
to read next? Ask at the Reference Desk and maybe we can help! We can
offer recommendations based on what types of genres, series, authors, or
titles you enjoy reading. In addition, we have a few “read-alike” lists
you can look at.
We also subscribe
to
NoveList (part of our
Ebscohost
database subscription; see below), a
database of more than 135,000 titles that allows you to track what you
have read and offers suggestions on what other authors or titles
you might enjoy based on what you’ve already read.
NoveList allows you
to search by author, title, keyword, subject, series, and theme, plus
others. It also offers information on authors, awards, and read-alikes.
Individual users can set up their own accounts in “My NoveList” to track
what they’ve read and what they’d like to read next.
You can access
NoveList (http://search.epnet.com) at
the library or from home if you have Internet access. Just ask at the
Reference Desk the login/password if you are a Crete Library cardholder.
I-Share Database (formerly Illinet Online)
The
I-Share database
(http://library.ilcso.illinois.edu/) allows us to search university
library holdings in Illinois. Sixty-five members of the Consortium of
Academic & Research Libraries in Illinois (CARLI) cooperatively share
resources among the consortium members. Patrons can search this database
at the library or from home, though they must place holds through the
Crete Public Library Reference Department. Be sure to give the reference
staff the correct title and author of the book, or better yet, print out
a copy of the citation for that book.
Ebscohost
Ebscohost (http://search.epnet.com/) is
a magazine and journal database covering a broad range of topics,
including general interest, business, health, and social issues.
Ebscohost contains approximately 1100 general reference publications,
some going back to 1984 and many with full text articles. Just a few of
the magazines included in
Ebscohost
with full text articles are Consumer
Reports, Earth Science, Harpers Bazaar, National Geographic, and
MacWorld. It also has 56 full text reference books and an image
collection of more than 193,000 photos, maps, and flags.
The Newspaper
Source section of Ebscohost allows access to 30 national and
international and 200 regional newspapers, plus television and radio
news transcripts. Articles can be printed, saved, or emailed by the user
for later use. Ebscohost can be accessed at the library or from home.
Contact the Reference Desk for login/password.
FirstSearch
The
Online Computer Library Center's (OCLC)
FirstSearch
database
(http://newfirstsearch.oclc.org/) is really a “database of databases,”
which gives library users access to numerous online databases and more
than 5 million full text articles. The following are just a few of the
most popular databases found in FirstSearch:
ArticleFirst Index of articles from
the contents pages of journals
ERIC
Journal articles and reports in education
IllinoisCatalog Catalog of materials in Illinois libraries
MEDLINE Covers all areas of
medicine, including dentistry and nursing
PerAbs
Periodical abstracts from general and academic journals
WilsonSelectPlus Full text articles in science, humanities, education
and business
WorldCat Catalog of
books and other materials in libraries worldwide
WorldCatDissertations Database of dissertations and theses
available in WorldCat
Like Ebscohost,
users can print, save, and email documents for later use. Again, contact
the Reference Desk for information on using FirstSearch.
Homework
We also try to keep
up with assignments from local schools, so if you have an assignment
due, please let us know what it is, so we can pull books that might be
helpful to you and your classmates. For instance, during the 2005-2006
school year, we kept a shelf full of books at the Reference Desk that
were on the high school’s Sustained Silent Reading Assignment (SSRA)
list so students always had a ready list of books to chose from, even if
they were coming in at the last minute.
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