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Remote Access

Access articles and electronic books from the Library's subscription databases from off-campus! When you click on a database, you will be prompted for your user name (your student ID) and PIN (the two-digit month and day of your birth in MMDD format).

Example for student with ID number 88-123-4567 born February 25th:

User name: 881234567
PIN: 0225

OneSearch Library Catalog Tutorial

This Fall 2022 Semester, the library is offering a new online OneSearch Library Catalog Tutorial. The tutorial is available in our library catalog, in many of our library research guides, and on our library website.

Upon completion of the OneSearch Library Catalog Tutorial, library patrons should be able to:

1. Find the OneSearch online library catalog.

2. Search for and locate books and e-books, videos, articles, digital media, and more in the library's collection.

3. Request items from other LACCD libraries.

At the end of the tutorial, there is a short online quiz, which provides users feedback.

ProQuest Video Tutorial

Recommended Databases

ProQuest is one of our most popular databases. It covers a wide range of disciplines with content from academic journals, magazines, newspapers and more. This would be a great place to search for current events information.

Use JSTOR to find scholarly journal articles on a variety of topics, including sociology, literature, political science, history and more.

Gale Virtual Reference Library consists of many specialized encyclopedias. It is ideal for finding a basic overview of topics. Information from encyclopedias is not updated as frequently as information from newspapers or magazines you'd find in ProQuest so it might not be best for the most current news but it's the perfect staring point for a general understanding of your topic.

Below are some tips and reminders when you are searching in our databases:

Use quotations around your search terms to search for your exact phrase(s).
Use AND, OR, or NOT to connect your search terms. (see helpful image here)
Narrow by date range and content type (scholarly articles, newspaper articles, magazine articles, reports, etc.)
Use truncation to find variations of words. For example, “alcohol*” will search for and locate “alcohol”, “alcoholics”, and “alcoholism”.

Do you need more help? E-mail me to set up a research appointment! Or visit any Librarian at the Reference Desk during our operating hours.