Dual Enrollment Resource Guide: For Students

As a BRCC student, you have online access to millions of newspaper, magazine, and scholarly journal articles through the library databases. Some databases provide access to films and ebooks as well.

To begin, go to the full A-Z list of our library databases by clicking Articles/Databases on the library homepage.

Click on Subjects and then make a choice from the drop-down menu to see all databases for that subject area. For example, if you are doing research on technology, you could select English & Literature Criticism to see a list of all databases with information related to that subject.

Then click on a database from the list. 

Once you are in the database, type in keywords related to your subject in the search box.
Notice the database will populate a drop-down with recommended search words.

Next, you will see a list of all the results of your search. This search found over 1000 results!
It is helpful to narrow the list by refining the results using the options on the left-hand column.

On the left hand side of your search, look for the "Limit To" sidebar to narrow results. You should filter by Full Text only, Peer-reviewed, and also by Publication Date. 

If you specifically need a journal article, you can use the Source Type limit. If you need to narrow your search further, try searching for a similar keyword or subject.

To access the full text article click on the PDF Full Text tab on the left hand side of the screen.

You may also want to save the article by printing, emailing it, or saving it to your Google Drive. 

The citation tab is a great place to start for your works cited page. However, be sure to check the citation that is generated for the article against our citation handouts, as they are not always 100% accurate. 

Many databases also have accessibility functions. In this case there is an option for having the article read to you, as well as a translation function. 

The database includes other tools for further accessibility. The menu for those items is right above the article text. Those tools include:

A language translation tool:

And a "listen" function that can perform an auditory read-out of the article.

To find books or electronic books using our online catalog, go to the main library homepage, and use the link for our "Library Catalog."

You will be taken to our Online catalog. You can begin your search by typing a keyword into the "search anything" box, or use the advanced search option at the right. 

Start your research journey by putting a word or term into the search bar. The results will provide a variety of resource types, including physical books on our shelves, ebooks, database articles, web resources, and many, many more. Our search for "video games" reflects this--coming back with over 145,000 results. To narrow down these results to just books in our physical and digital holdings, use the filters on the right. 

Looking through over 145,000 results is an impossible task, but luckily the catalog has the ability to filter your results into a more manageable amount. For example, maybe you are looking for a book you can checkout from Houff Library. To filter the results to show just physical books that we have here, check the box next to "Held by Library" under the Availability filter, and "Books" under Resource Type. This will limit the results to those on our shelves at Houff.

As seen below, this narrows our results to just a few resources. You can click on the title to find out more information about a book, or grab it from our shelves by using the call number (seen in purple). Your active filters are remembered by the catalog, so if you want to change any of these either press reset, or X out of filters individually. If you have any questions about finding a book in Houff, please ask one of the librarians at the information desk.

Call numbers are the address or location for books in the library. Within the library, books can be found in the following areas:

• Reserve - books behind the information desk that are usually for in-house library use only. 

• Circulating Collection - located in "the stacks," and can be borrowed for four weeks. 

• Online Access - books available online to read on the internet. You can access these books anywhere. If you are off-campus, you will need your myBRCC credentials to access e-resources. For more information, check out our off-campus access guide.

Please ask the library staff if you need help locating a book! To learn more about our circulation policies and how to navigate the library stacks, please see this guide on Houff Library Resources.

To access e-books, use the filters at the right and check the box next to "Full Text Online" under the Availability filter, and "Books" under Resource Type. This will limit the results to materials in our digital holdings.

Once you have decided on an ebook to read, you can access the text by clicking into the catalog record and accessing the database link in the "View Online" section of the record. This link will open in a new tab and will usually provide options to either read the book online, or download to your device.