Nursing Library Tour

Shreveport Nursing Library
Room 101, Building 306-B (Facing Elizabeth Street)

Shreveport Nursing Library occupies 9,700 square feet with seating for over 150 users, including twelve lockable study carrels, eight group study rooms, and a larger group study/media viewing area. Six of the group study rooms can be reserved.  An Information Literacy Lab equipped with unified work stations is available for individual or group projects/instruction.

The collection contains 15,000 books, bound periodical volumes, reports, and theses; more than 70% are related to nursing, biomedicine, and radiologic technology. The library holds 3,500 microfiche and 500 microfilm reels. We subscribe to 70 print journals and numerous online full-text journal titles.

Academic Staff  The Shreveport Nursing Library is staffed by a librarian and two library associates.  Part-time Library Assistants are available through  student worker or Title-V programs.

Circulation  At the Circulation Desk, a registered student/patron can check out library books, media, and reserve materials (care-plan books and CD-ROMs). A current NSU ID is required.

Most items circulate for 3 weeks. Reserve care-plan and other high-demand books circulation period is 7 days with no renewals. Care-plan books have a checkout limit of two at a time.  

Books provided by Shreve Memorial Library near the reserve section  can be checked out by NSU students / faculty / staff.  Send special requests for Shreve Memorial Library fiction to ruftys@nsula.edu

Electronic reserve material is placed on Blackboard by the student’s professor. Retrieve this material by signing on to Blackboard with a “My NSU” username and password. Go to the university home page at http://www.nsula.edu/ and follow the prompts when you click on “eNSU.”

Overdue fines are 50 cents per day for most items (3-week check-out). Reserve books accrue fines at $1.00 per day. Lost book fee is $60.00 each plus overdue fines. Overdue notices are sent only by e-mail. We post any fines and lost book fees weekly to your university account. You can pay them by check or money order at the Shreveport campus Financial Aid office.

College of Nursing Course-Materials File  Members of the College of Nursing faculty place materials for classes in a file in the library, so that students can utilize and photocopy material. The filing cabinet in the open-stack area operates on a “help yourself”  basis.

Reading / Study Area  The library contains ample seating for studying and a small browsing area where one can relax, read magazines, or the Shreveport Times.

Information Literacy Lab in the Library   Twenty-four computers and a printer can be used to search  library databases and indexes, retrieve full-text material, search the online catalog, and access library-selected Internet sites. Full-text documents can be e-mailed to an e-mail account, saved, or printed.

The information Literacy Lab can be reserved by faculty or students for hands-on instruction. A teacher’s station, projector, and ceiling screen are available for showing PowerPoint presentations, BlackBoard, or otherwise connecting to the Internet. Over 200 nursing videos, 1000 physical assessment slides, and a care plan tutorial are loaded on these computers for clinical students. You must bring your own headphones.

Student Lab 1 (Room 112) and Student Lab 2 (Room 105)   Word processing, open search of the Internet, email, chat applications, Blackboard and printing for full-text articles should be done in the Student Labs.  The Student Computer Labs are operated under the direction of the College of Nursing Media staff (Room 300B/107B). Ordinarily, the Student Labs are open whenever the library is open.

For assistance in the Student Computer Labs, see David Lamb or Trey Glass in the Media office/studio. For assistance with library related projects (searching for journal articles/books etc.), the library staff will help you.  If you do not need assistance you can choose any of these locations (or your home computer) to work on your projects.

Photocopier Service  At the Library, you have access to two photocopiers. The copiers do NOT accept change. To make copies, use your Speed Demon card. You can also buy a copy card ($1.00) from the Speed Demon vending machine just outside the library. Money can be placed on the Speed Demon or the Visitor’s card to operate the photocopiers. Copies cost 10 cents each.

Media viewing and Listening DVD and Videocassette players are available for use in the library. Ask at the Circulation Desk for assistance.

Locating Books Related to Nursing or Medicine   To browse the stacks for books in a general medical subject area, use the following Library of Congress subclasses:

R Medicine (General)
RA Public aspects of medicine
RB Pathology
RC Internal medicine
RD Surgery
RE Ophthalmology
RF Otolaryngology
RG Gynecology and obstetrics
RJ Pediatrics
RK Dentistry
RL Dermatology
RM Therapeutics. Pharmacology
RS Pharmacy and material medical
RT Nursing
RV Botanic, Thomsonian, and eclectic
RX Homeopathy
RZ Other systems of medicine

To browse the stacks for nursing books, use the
Following Library of Congress subclasses:
RT 1 – 120 Nursing
RT 89 – 120 Specialties in nursing

To browse the stacks for special nursing collections see
NSU Theses, Special Projects, Dissertations, Historical Collection
Located in open-stacks area.

To browse the stacks for radiologic technology books
Use the following Library of Congress subclasses:
R 895 – 920 Radiology and nuclear medicine
RC 71 – 78.7 Radiography

Ask at the Circulation Desk if assistance is needed.

Reference Books  The library offers print reference books, encyclopedias, dictionaries, writing-style manuals, and medical terminology books. These are arranged by call number, using the Library of Congress Classification System. Bound and current journals in the Serials room are by title in alphabetical order. All reference materials are for in-library-use only.

Reference Service   Ask at the Circulation Desk or any library staff member if you need help in locating library material. Library staff can help you locate print materials or conduct a search online to retrieve full-text electronic books or journal articles. Special “information literacy” classes, focused on the particular needs of an assignment, are taught upon request by faculty.

Online basic library tutorials that teach you to select, search, locate, and evaluate resources, including the Internet, are available at the TILT Online Research Tutorial (TILT) website.

Nursing and Allied Health Journals   Serial holdings for the branch library appear in the online catalog, but students and faculty can also access a complete list of full-text electronic, print, and microform journals by going to the NSU Journal List at http://atoz.ebsco.com/home.asp?Id-NWSU

Print journals are arranged alphabetically by title in chronological order in the Serials Room 101-J. These are reference items and are for in-library-use only.

Online Library Resources and Services    Students and faculty can access many library resources and services (24 hours a day, 7 days a week) by going to the online catalog (SIRSI Unicorn iLINK) at http://nsula.louis/libraries.org, or the NSU Library Catalog.

Databases pertaining to nursing and allied health include:
CINAHL EBSCO (Cumulative Index to Nursing & Allied Health Literature)
CINAHL ProQuest with Full Text
MEDLINE
TOXLINE
Clinical Pharmacology
Cochrane Library
Health Source: Nursing / Academic Edition
Lexi-Comp Online 
ProQuest Nursing Journals
YourJournals@OVID
PsycINFO (Psychological Abstracts)
Sociological Abstracts 
Social Services Abstracts
Biological Abstracts
Other important databases that index articles pertaining to nursing and allied health include
ERIC  (which includes E*subscribe) and
LexisNexis Academic Universe   

netLibrary   Create a user name and password from a campus computer at netLibrary  and you can check out electronic books 24 hours a day, 7 days a week from any computer connected to the Internet, whether on-or off-campus.

Students/faculty/staff can also access specialized nursing guide sheets, pathfinders, and tutorials from the Shreveport Nursing Library’s web site at http://www.nsula.edu/watson_library/shreve/.   Other Nursing and Allied Health Links are available at http://www.nsula.edu/watson_library/NURSE.HTM

LALINC Library Card Service  Northwestern students (graduate students and distance education students) and faculty/staff may apply for a free LALINC Library Card that will be honored at participating Louisiana libraries by sending an e-mail request to fernandezd@nsula.edu or submitting the request to Dot Fernandez in the library. Details will be provided upon request.

Study Carrel Service   During the first two weeks of each semester graduate students can reserve one of ten lockable study carrels for a semester by paying a $10.00 fee. An additional $10 fee is charged if the carrel key is not returned. After the two-week time period, undergraduate students can reserve a carrel. If the study carrel is not renewed at the end of the semester, the student will need to re-apply and pay a $10 fee in order to continue reserving a study carrel. Requests should be made to Library Associate, Sandra Rufty  ruftys@nsula.edu or 318 677-3007.

Collection Development Service The Brandon/Hill Selected Lists, formerly published on the Internet by the Mount Sinai School of Medicine, served as major collection development tools, in particular, the list of “Print Nursing Journals and Books” and the “Selected List of Print Books and Journals in Allied Health” http://www.mssm.edu/library/brandon-hill/.

Currently the primary collection development tools are Doody’s Electronic Journal and the Nursing Resource List published on the Internet by the Collection Development Section of the Medical Library Association http://colldev.mlanet.org/. Faculty are encouraged to recommend book titles for purchase and are involved in the review of electronic databases being considered for purchase. In addition, students are also invited to utilize trials of electronic databases and submit their recommendations either to the librarian or to their professors. Recommendations for purchase should be sent to the Shreveport Division, Dot Fernandez fernandezd@nsula.edu or 318 677-3008 or 3007