Welcome to EZRA UNIVERSITY LIBRARY

LIBRARY PURPOSE STATEMENT

The mission of the Ezra University Library is to provide students, faculty, and staff with the bibliographic resources, research tools, and study environment necessary for the academic training of men and women for Christian ministry to fulfill the mission of the school commissioned by the Triune God. We develop collections, catalogs, staff, services, policies, and facilities to support this task.

This mission is supported by the following goals:

Bibliographic Resources
• To provide a well-organized collection of books, periodicals, audiovisual and electronic media which effectively supports the curriculum, course offerings, and usage of the institution
• To develop a collection that is comparable to accredited colleges which is similar with our size

Technology and Electronic Resources
• To provide technological tool, software, and hardware that facilitate research and easy access to information
• To provide access to an electronic catalog of materials, organized according to nationally recognized and accepted standards, which includes access to databases and full-text materials and provides a gateway to a wide variety of external resources

Research Guides and Information Literacy Instruction
• To provide reference and research assistance in order to support students’ learning and faculty’s instruction
• To provide training in information literacy and research skills such as academic style, plagiarism, copyrights, fair use, information retrieval, etc.
• To provide competent professionals and support staff in adequate numbers to meet the needs of faculty and students

Network and Inter-Library Loan
• To provide access to additional resources from other collections such as cooperative agreements, inter-library loan, resource sharing programs
• To partner with faculty in developing and implementing possibilities of using library resources to better support their instruction

Facilities
• To provide comfortable, well-lit, and attractively furnished study space for users to be able to fully use the library services and materials within the library
• To provide sufficient, safe, and attractive space for display, processing, and storage of the collection

Assessment and Plan
• To assess library usage and survey user satisfaction for improvement of library services
• To regularly evaluate library services in order to reflect the result into a strategic action plan

ONLINE RESOURCES

Library and Information Resources Network (LIRN)

Ezra University Library offers Students & Faculty the LIRN online databases allowing each library patron to have access to a variety of e-books, full-text articles, and periodical publications, journals, and newspapers. LIRN is available 24/7 though internet access, allowing students and faculty access according to their schedule.

Please have your LIRN ACCESS CODE at the library desk and log into the LIRN directly as follows:

Through the LIRN online collections, students and faculty have access to database vendors such as ProQuest, GALE, and EBSCOhost. Each vendor has numerous databases that can be searched by Subject or search individual databases like the Gale Virtual Reference Library (GVRL) for reference information. Ezra University researchers can search for reference materials such as encyclopedias, dictionaries, and almanacs as well as full-text articles from journals, newspapers and magazines across multidisciplinary subjects.

To access LIRN, go to the LIRN homepage at https://www.lirn.net and select the “Databases” button or go directly to https://www.lirn.net/databases; Enter your LIRN ID when prompted. Once you have logged in, the resources will appear on the LIRN Gateway Menu. Note that on the LIRN Gateway Menu, there is a search box that allows you to directly query across vendors using our federated search service, LIRNSearch. The default view for you is the Subject view. You can change this view during your current session by clicking on one of the other tabs (alphabetical, simple, vendor).

Our Librarian staff have composed a YouTube Video that you might find useful. This can be found on the LIRNotes channel (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nl7tjhNMyFo).