The following resources, services, and support are offered to distance education students and faculty.
Electronic
The library provides access to over 400,000 eBooks and nearly 61,000 electronic journals through over 118 online databases. These materials are discoverable via the library’s catalog, discovery service (EDS), and its suite of databases, all of which are accessible through the library’s website. This access is available at all times online via a proxy service. Users simply provide their credentials to verify their current affiliation with LCU and they are passed directly to the resources upon successful authentication.
Physical
The circulating collection of the library's physical holdings, comprising nearly 100,000 volumes, is also available to distance education students and faculty. Materials can be checked out to the user under established circulation guidelines and charged items are mailed to the user via postal service. While the LCU Library pays for mailing items to users, the user is responsible for the cost of returning materials to the institution. Distance education users should also be aware of local libraries near them, since most public and academic libraries offer guest user privileges, providing access to the use of physical materials to registered users.
Document Delivery
Users requiring portions of items held in the library’s physical collections, e.g. journal articles, book chapters, encyclopedia entries, etc., may have these items scanned and delivered to them electronically. To ensure compliance with federal guidelines and regulations, scanned items are delivered only to institutional email addresses, that is, those utilizing the @lcuniversity.edu domain. Requests for materials may be made using the library's interlibrary loan request forms, or by contacting the library via any number of communication channels.
Interlibrary Loan
Most interlibrary loan services are available to distance students and faculty. However, the library does not mail returnable materials borrowed from other libraries to users. In some instances, the library will seek to purchase its own copy of the material to mail to the user, or will assist the user in locating a physical copy in a library near his/her residence. Users may pick up returnable ILL materials at the LCU library, but they are responsible for returning them back to the library in a timely manner and in good condition.
Reciprocal Borrowing
Through its membership in the Louisiana academic library consortium, LOUIS, and its membership in the Christian Library Consortium (CLC) students and faculty affiliated with the university have access to the physical collections of participating members. The extent of access to materials through these programs is determined by each participating institution. Special cards and/or documentation are required before gaining access to another institution’s collections through these programs. Contact the library to learn more and to obtain the necessary documentation.
Research Assistance
The library provides point-of-need assistance in the use of the library and its resources to online students and faculty both synchronously during regular business hours (via chat, text, phone, and video conferencing), and asynchronously (via email, research and course guides, video tutorials, and an FAQ). The library also hosts occasional webinars. Although webinars are available to all College personnel, they provide targeted instruction to distance education users. Any upcoming online instruction sessions are listed on the library’s events page.