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O'Neill Library
Mission/Purpose
| User Profile | Facilities
| Services | Resources
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Research Guides
Mission/Purpose
The Thomas P. O'Neill Library is the central research library
of the University and is located on the main campus in Chestnut
Hill, Massachusetts. The Library opened in 1984 and is named for
the former Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, Thomas
P. "Tip" O'Neill, Jr., class of 1936. The O'Neill Library collections
and services reflect the broad range of the research and teaching
programs of the University. Particular emphasis is focussed on providing
personal services, access to collections in all formats, seamless
access to information regardless of its location, and leadership
in the use of networking technology.
User
Profile
The O'Neill Library serves as a crossroads for Boston College
faculty, students, and staff, and is heavily used throughout the
year. The Library is also open to the public and heavily used
by area residents, students and faculty from other institutions,
and visiting scholars from around the world. Boston College Alumni
remain eligible for library privileges throughout their lifetime,
and continue to use elements of the collections and services of
O'Neill Library onsite and via remote access. The Boston College
Libraries are members of the Boston
Library Consortium and the Boston
Theological Institute, and students from these institutions
regularly take advantage of the services and collections available
in O'Neill Library. The Boston College Libraries host the online
catalog of holdings owned by St. John's Seminary, a nearby institution.
St. John's faculty and students enjoy privileges similar to all
Boston College faculty and students, and are frequent users of O'Neill
Library, especially for the premier theology and philosophy collections
housed here.
Facilities
O'Neill Library is one of the largest academic buildings
on the Chestnut Hill campus. Within the library are study carrels,
media carrels and listening rooms, two media classrooms, service
desks, public photocopiers and telefacsimile machines, and other
services and equipment to support the research and learning of O'Neill
Library patrons.
Also
located within the O'Neill Library are other centers and facilities
to support research, teaching, and learning. These include the
Electronic
Information Center , the Document
Services Center , the Government
Documents / Microforms Area , the Academic
Development Center, the Media
Center, the Book
Lab and Preservation Department, Interlibrary
Loan, and the Thomas P. O'Neill, Jr. Exhibit.
Group
study rooms and temporary Faculty Research Offices are also located
here. The Group Study Rooms and space for faculty research are on
the 5th level of O'Neill Library. The faculty research room is equipped
with two microcomputers, a Macintosh and an IBM. Storage and file
cabinet space is also available. Arrangements for long-term research
space by faculty on sabbatical leave can be made through the Office
of the Dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences.
Patrons
with laptop computers may access the campus network from connections
located in the Laptop Room on the 4th floor and at 12 additional
study carrels, also located on the 4th floor. Adaptive equipment
for patrons with vision impairments is available in the main Reference
area on the 3rd floor. Equipment includes text enlargers, work stations
with specialized software and speech synthesizers, and a scanner.
Services
O'Neill Library offers a wealth of services developed to facilitate
and support the research process and to foster critical thinking
skills and life long learning. Services are available onsite at
service desks and via electronic forms, many through the University's
Agora service. These services include Interlibrary Loan, circulation
transactions (e.g., renew, recall, rush catalog, etc.), requests
for research consultations, and requests for library instruction
classes. Specific services and service areas within O'Neill include:
Access
Overview
At the main circulation service desk in O'Neill Library, users
may complete a wide variety of transactions and receive detailed
information on other services available to Boston College Libraries'
users. These include information on use of the Boston Library Consortium
member institutions, delivery of services to users with special
needs, and delivery of items held in remote storage.
Users
with Special Needs
Library staff will locate, retrieve, and place on hold items from
the collections for users with special needs. Text enlargement
services are also available at the Document Services Center. Materials
requested can be held for pick up, or in many instances, delivered
directly to the user's desktop. Staff will also escort users with
special needs to assist them in locating material in the building,
and are available to provide assistance in use of adaptive equipment
available in the main Reference area on level 3.
Remote
Collections
Remote collections are clearly designated in the Libraries' online
catalog, and available for retrieval back to the O'Neill Library.
Desktop delivery is available for journal articles and other photocopies,
and daily courier service is in place for books and journals.
Library staff can also make arrangements for users to visit the
remote facilities when requests warrant it, and are prepared to
deliver materials to a library location for users who need access
to large runs of journals or other serial items.
Reserve
O'Neill Library houses the main library reserve collection for the
Schools of Arts and Sciences (except Fine Arts), Education, Management,
Nursing, the College of Advancing Studies, and the Arthur D. Little
School of Management. Placing items on Reserve ensures that students
have equal access to high use readings by consolidating the materials
in one location and by limiting the loan periods. The materials
include photocopied journal articles, homework solutions, and books--library
owned or personal copies. Materials that are selected for Reserve
are easily identified in the Libraries' online system, Quest, by
their Reserve Desk location.
An
electronic reserve project has been underway for a year now, piloted
by staff in the O'Neill Reserve and O'Neill Systems Departments.
Access to Boston College Libraries' Online Reserve Collection
is limited to the students, faculty, and staff of Boston College.
The files are images that require state of the art computers and
laser printers to access and print. Students may use the computers
in the O'Neill Library Reserve Reading Room or access the database
from their dormitory or off campus residence.
Reference
and Instructional Services
Reference staff and subject specialists are available to answer
questions, to serve as research consultants, and to provide class
and individual library instruction. They assist library users
in searching the on-line catalog, the electronic databases, and
resources available in all of the Boston College Libraries. In
addition, Library staff are committed to working with others on
campus to develop research tools and partnerships for specific
purposes. Examples include an instruction Web site developed for
the First
Year Writing Seminars and the Library Presidential Scholars
Partnership Program. The latter pairs undergraduate student scholars
with library mentors, and also provides them with other library
privileges usually reserved for faculty and graduate students.
Instructional
Support
In addition to individual and classroom instruction on library
research, special services designed to enhance teaching and learning
for all at Boston College are also available in the Academic Development
Center, located on level two in O'Neill Library. The ADC offers
instructional support to faculty and graduate students, special
services to students with learning disabilities, and free peer
tutoring and skills workshops to all Boston College students.
Interlibrary
Loan
Materials not available in the Boston College Libraries may be
obtained through Interlibrary Loan, located in O'Neill Library.
Requests may be submitted onsite at the ILL Office or O'Neill
service desks, or via electronic request forms. Many items can
be delivered directly to the user's desktop.
Document
Services
Over-the-counter copy and retrieval services, combined with desktop
delivery, are available at the Document Services Center in O'Neill
Library for a fee. For an additional small service charge, printing
on transparencies and color copying are also options. A self service
color copier is also available. Public telefacsimile machines
are also available, for outgoing and incoming transmissions.
Preservation
The print collections in O'Neill Library are heavily used, and
the preservation and repair of these valuable research resources
is a high priority. The O'Neill Preservation Department and Book
Lab, located on level two, are where highly trained library
staff and conservation interns coordinate and assist with comprehensive
preventative treatments, repair, preservation photocopying, and
disaster planning for all the Boston College Libraries.
Resources
The O'Neill Library houses the primary research collections for
the graduate and undergraduate divisions of the College of Arts
and Sciences, the Lynch School of Education, the Carroll School
of Management, and the School of Nursing. These research collections
include electronic, print, media, microforms, and government document
materials collected and organized to support the research needs
of scholars campus-wide. Resource areas and some highlights under
each include:
General
Research Collections
O'Neill Library holds 1.3 million volumes of the BC Libraries research
collections. These include general reference materials, indexes,
the circulating collections, media, government documents, and other
research materials housed on the five floors of O'Neill Library
and at three remote collection sites.
Current
Periodicals
The O'Neill Library holds the majority of the 12,000 current periodical
titles subscribed to by the Boston College Libraries. Current
journals and newspapers are located on level three, convenient
to photocopiers and Reference Desk service. In addition, the 180
electronic journals within the BC Libraries' collections are easily
accessed via the 60 workstations located in the Electronic Information
Center, adjacent to the Reference Desk.
Government
Documents
Boston College has been a member of the Federal Depository Library
Program since 1963. The main government documents collection is
housed in the O'Neill Library. The library currently selects 58%
of all available federal materials with an emphasis on publications
on education, health, vital statistics, demography, Congress,
industry, commerce and labor. United Nations, Massachusetts, and
Boston documents on microfiche are also available in the Government
Documents/Microforms area on level one.
Microforms
The Microforms collection, located on level one of O'Neill Library,
contains more than 1,600,000 items in micro formats (microfilm,
microfiche, and microcard). More than 2,000 journal titles comprise
a significant portion of the collection, as well U.S. Government
Information, United Nations documents, Boston College Dissertations,
and Nursing Dissertations from the U.S. and Canada. Machines are
available to read, print, and digitize microform holdings.
The Media Center
The O'Neill Library Media Center is on the 2nd floor in O'Neill Library. It houses the non-print collection and facilities for viewing and listening. The Center exists to enable patrons to use the media collection. The collection may be searched via the Library's online catalog. The collection includes video, audio, and other non-print media collection: videocassettes, laserdiscs, compact discs, audiocassettes, phonodiscs, 16mm films, and cd-roms. There are 43 carrels in the center with: 20 videocassette recorders, 9 laserdisc players, 1 iMac G3, 1 IBM PC with a CD-ROM drive, 8 audiocassette players, 1 turntable, and 1 Kurzweil Personal Reader.
The Media Center has 2 classrooms (seating 45 and 25 students), one listening room, and a faculty preview room for individual or small group use. Faculty may reserve any of these rooms. The classrooms offer: video/computer projection capability, ½" VHS VCR, laserdisc player, audiocassette player, record player, PAL Video Player, 16mm film projector, filmstrip projector, and an overhead projector.
The Center has a liaison relationship with other media agencies on campus, such as the Language Laboratory and the Audiovisual Services, as well as the special libraries: the Educational Resource Center, the Social Work Library, and the Bapst and Burns libraries, including the new Irish Music Center.
Research
Guides
Research guides are available to provide helpful information to
users on a variety of subjects. Examples of guides that are most
pertinent to use of O'Neill research collections include: Philosophy
of Education; Irish
Studies; African
American Literature; and Management.
Guides on general research strategies and use of particular formats
are are also available. Examples of these include: A Step-by-Step
Guide to doing Research and Government
Documents at O'Neill Library. Comprehensive coverage of research
and collections areas is available via the Libraries' Web site under
Research
Guides and the ARL Eligibility Portfolio under Research Collections.
Each offers a wealth of information to assist scholars conducting
research in O'Neill Library.
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Next:
Special Collections
Libraries and Centers
[ O'Neill Library ] Special
Collections | University Archives
| Irish Music Center |
Social Work Library |
Bapst Art Library | Educational
Resource Center | Newton Resource
Center | Weston O'Connor
Library | Law Library |
Academic Development Center
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