HEA 595: HOME

Our collection includes over 2 million books, over 70,000 e-journals; nearly 400 databases, and another 2 million titles in microforms.

The Central Reading Room (Main Reference Desk), Science & Engineering Library (North Reading Room) and Music Library are on the on 1st floor of Melville Library. The entrance to the Main Stacks (Arts & Humanities, Social Sciences collections) is on the 3rd Floor. There are several Branch Libraries on campus as well.

The Health Sciences Library is separate library system located on the East Campus. You have access to their collection, both in print and online.

Circulation Policy:

For undergraduates:  50 books, one-month borrowing period.  Also, 3 DVDs, with a one-week borrowing period.

For graduate students: 100 books, lending period is extended to the end of the currently-enrolled semester.  3 DVDs, with a one-week borrowing period.  

Renewals: 3 times if no one is waiting for the material. Can be done online via STAR.

Fines: $0.25/day, $85/book – Card is blocked at $5.

Recalls/Holds can be done online via STARS.

Photocopies: $.10 a page. You can put money on your student ID for copy machines. Copy machines also accept change and bills. The Photocopy Center is on the 3rd Floor of Melville, near Circulation.

Here are some easy tricks that can help with your searching:

Putting an AND between words will search for BOTH words on a webpage or in an article.  When you do a normal Google search, you are doing an AND search.

EXAMPLE: immigration and employment will only give you web pages or articles that have both of those words.  This means you will get fewer results, but they should be better results.

Putting QUOTATION MARKS around a phrase will search for web pages or articles that have that exact phrase.  This is a very useful trick.  It will cut down on the number of bad results.  Be careful not to include too many words inside the quotation marks, because that's EXACTLY what will be searched.

EXAMPLE: “genetic engineering” will only give you web pages or articles with that exact phrase.  Other examples are "climate change," "no child left behind," "body image."

An ASTERISK (*) search is very useful when similar words are being used to talk about a topic.  It searches for all the various words using the same root.

EXAMPLE: comput* will give you articles that have the words compute, computer, computing, etc.  Or: educat* will search for educate, education, educator, educators, etc.

Putting an OR between words will give you articles with at least one of the words.  This will give you more results.  It can be useful when you're not sure which word is being used more.

EXAMPLE: fat OR obesity will give web pages and articles that have the word fat.  And it will give you web pages and articles that have the word obesity.

Use (Parentheses) to group multiple search terms together.  You're basically doing TWO searches at the same time.

EXAMPLE: debt and (teenagers or adolescents) will give you web pages or articles that have the words debt and teenagers and web pages and articles that have the words debt and adolescents.

Here are some of the most popular and useful Library databases:

Through the University's membership in various Library consortiums, Stony Brook students, staff and faculty have access to, and/or borrowing privileges at, numerous other research libraries on Long Island, in the greater New York area, and throughout the U.S., Canada, and other countries.

OCLC Research Library Partnership (formerly Research Libraries Group)

The University Libraries' membership in the OCLC Research Library Partnership (formerly the Research Libraries Group - RLG) allows Stony Brook students, staff, and faculty with current ID cards to enter and use many major libraries in the United States, Canada and abroad.

In our geographical region, other libraries in the program include: Columbia, NYU, The New York Public Library, The New School, American Museum of Natural History, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Museum of Modern Art, New-York Historical Society, Cornell, Princeton, Rutgers, The University of Pennsylvania, and Yale.

Full List of OCLC Research Library Partnership Member Libraries

Stony Brook ID holders visiting these institutions may use materials; however, borrowing privileges are not usually available.

Students, staff, and faculty are urged to call ahead to a particular library, before actually going there, to confirm that they will be granted access at their time of arrival. Also, if they need to use a branch library within one of the participating library systems, it should be confirmed beforehand that the branch also takes part in the program and will allow access.

Research Loan Program (Long Island Library Resources Council)

The Long Island Library Resources Council (LILRC) is a regional multi-type library organization serving academic, special, public, hospital and school libraries and library systems in Nassau and Suffolk counties.
 
The LILRC Research Loan Program (RLP), a reciprocal borrowing agreement between member libraries, allows Stony Brook students, staff and faculty to use and borrow material from numerous institutions on Long Island, including Adelphi University, Dowling College, Nassau and Suffolk Community Colleges, St. Joseph's College, Touro Law Center, Brookhaven National Laboratory, and the Nassau and Suffolk Public Library Systems.

Students, staff and faculty interested in borrowing material through the Research Loan Program must visit the Reference Desk in the Central Reading Room of Melville Library for an RLP pass.

Full List of LILRC Research Loan Program Member Libraries

An up-to-date list of these libraries is also available at the service desk in Circulation Services, 3rd floor of the Melville Library.

New York Public Library

Any person who lives, works, attends school or pays property taxes in New York State is eligible to receive a New York Public Library card free of charge. This gives researchers the opportunity to use important collections in the NYPL system, check out material, and access a wide array of useful electronic resources from on-site or, in a few cases, from home. See the NYPL web site for more information on getting a card.

See their list of databases.

State Univeristy of New York Libraries

Stony Brook students, staff, and faculty have direct borrowing privileges at most other SUNY libraries.