Library Services

Research Assistance

Need help with research? You’ve come to the right place! Several professional librarians are willing and able to assist you with your research needs. We’ll gladly guide you to the right resources, provide a fast track to often-used links, and assist with minor document/technical issues. All you need to do is ask.

Our staff is available by phone, email, and chat. Calls and chats are not available outside of library hours. Visit our contact us or hours page for more information.

Computers, Printing, Scanning, and Copying

The Library is equipped with several computers available to the Yellow Jacket community, along with our Library Learning Center, which can be reserved by Faculty for their instructional needs.

Printing and photocopy services are offered for both black & white and color documents. Best of all, IT”S FREE!

For more specifics on available equipment and software, visit our Public Computers and Printing page.

Study Spaces and Rooms for Reserve

The Drain-Jordan Library has plenty of comfortable study spaces throughout the building that can be used in individual or group settings, including study pods in our Quiet Study Area (first come, first served, on the 2nd floor) and four areas that students, staff, or faculty can reserve:

• Group study room (located on the 1st floor) – capacity: 6
• Library Learning Center/LLC* (located on the 1st floor) – capacity: 24
• Small conference room* (located on the 2nd floor) – capacity: 12
• Large conference room* (located on the Ground floor) – capacity: 16

Group study, conference, and instructional rooms can be reserved for any time during normal operating hours. A valid WVSU ID is required for all reservations and is held at the Circulation desk during your reservation window.

At the conclusion of your reservation, be sure to clean up any trash, wipe off the whiteboards, gather any personal items, turn off all lights, and close the door. Remember to stop at the Circulation desk to notify staff of your exit and to pick up your ID.

*The Library Learning Center and Conference rooms may only be reserved by WVSU Faculty or Staff and reservations must be approved by Library staff.

Interlibrary Loan (ILL)

The Interlibrary Loan (ILL) service allows current WVSU faculty, staff, and students to borrow books, articles, and other research materials not currently available in the Drain-Jordan Library collection.

To ensure prompt processing, make sure to provide as many details as possible.

Note: You will automatically receive a confirmation email containing your submitted information once the form is completed.

Course Reserves

Course Reserves at the Drain-Jordan Library connect students directly with required class materials—at zero cost to them. By placing high-demand textbooks and readings on short-term loan, Course Reserves ensure every student has day-one access to the resources needed to succeed.

• For Students: Save money on expensive textbooks, reduces stress, and stay on top of your coursework from day one.
• For Faculty: Boost class participation, lower course drop/fail rates, and ensure all students start the semester on an equal playing field.
  

Ready to get started? Visit the Circulation desk, submit a Course Reserves form, or contact us at refdesk@wvstateu.edu to learn more.

Open Access/Free Resources

Local Resources

• Kanawha County Public Library cards are free if you live, work, or attend school in West Virginia. As students at WVSU, you need only show a picture ID and something with your campus mailing address.
• South Charleston Public Library provides free access to books and various other resources with an active SCPL card. Just present photo id and something with your campus mailing address. SCPL is located at 312 4th Ave, South Charleston, WV 25303 (map)
• West Virginia Library Commission is the state library and offers a variety of educational resources to West Virginia residents.
  • WVInfoDepot.org is a collection of databases that the West Virginia Library Commission provides to state residents.
  • WV History and Genealogy – The Library Commission provides a variety of resources for local history and genealogical research.
  • Additional databases can be accessed via the Library Commission.
• WVDeli is West Virginia’s online arm of the public library.  Access is available with a current South Charleston Public Library card.  eBooks and eAudiobooks that can be downloaded and accessed via multiple devices/platforms.

Journals

• AccessMedicine Covid-19 Central is a free, open source information center for the Covid-19 pandemic. Updated regularly.
• CrossRef maintains a list of member journal titles for which it provides linking infrastructure services. The mission of this non-profit is “to enable easy identification and use of trustworthy electronic content”.  It is known to remove journals of dubious reputation from membership and thus from the list, so presence of a title on this list may be useful positive indicator.
• Directory of Open Access Journals is a community-curated online directory that indexes and provides access to high quality, open access, peer-reviewed journals. 
• Elsevier Open Access Journals is a collection of fully peer reviewed and freely available journals available for download from ScienceDirect.
  • Elsevier offers free access to relevant research for health emergencies.
  • Patients and caregivers are provided with research papers related to medicine and healthcare upon request to help them better understand the latest research on their conditions.
  • Everyone can access a collection of the work from each year’s Nobel Prize winners.
  • The archives for 140 journals, including Cell Press research journals, open 12 months after publication.

Books

• Project Gutenberg is an ongoing eBook collection project including older U.S. literary works which have exceeded their copyright protection and fall into the public domain.
• Google Books provides access to millions of pages of in-print books (not all books will be fully accessible).
• eBooks@Adelaide is the University of Adelaide’s (Australia) open access literature project which includes texts covering a wide range of topics such as travel, philosophy, religion, science, history and gastronomy.
• The Online Books Page, created by the University of Pennsylvania, is a growing collection of free eBooks and currently houses special collections like a Celebration of Women Writers, Banned Books Online, and Prize Winning Books Online.
• Open Culture provides free cultural and educational media: eBooks (fiction and non-fiction, including text books), audiobooks, movies, films, and language lessons.
• Bartleby.com houses thousands of reference, literature and non-fiction eBooks.
• ipl2 is the first public library created for an Internet community.  It offers reference materials, fictional works, an Ask a Librarian feature, youth & children’s materials, etc.