Nov 15, 2013

Stepping back to the Jazz Age for an upcoming history presentation, College of the Mainland student Montgomery Beavers searches for information on jiving musicians and the era of the first talking movie. She turns to her essential resource – e-books in COM’s database of – which she accesses online from home and in the library.
 
“I use e-books all the time. If I didn’t have them, I would die,” said Beavers, who is pursuing an associate degree in general studies. “They’re very easy to flip through. With the table of contents, you can click and it takes you right to the chapter.”
 
To purchase more e-books to support popular COM courses, the COM Library has secured a $10,000 grant from the U.S. Institute of Museum and Library Services and the Texas State Library and Archives Commission.
 
The library’s grant application detailed a data-backed plan to purchase e-books to support the college’s most in-need courses, particularly online classes. Impressed, the commission ranked the college the highest in the state and awarded COM the maximum grant amount.
 
“When deciding to apply for the TSLAC grant, the COM Library analyzed distance education enrollment statistics and e-book usage and found that the need for e-books is skyrocketing,” said COM Library director Kathy Park.
 
With the grant funds, the COM Library purchased 71 titles, many of them multivolume works, including the six-volume “The Gale Encyclopedia of Nursing and Allied Health” and five-volume “Celebrating Women in American History.”

To provide easy access to students, the new e-books will be embedded into the popular LibGuides, step-by-step tutorials on the library’s website on a variety of topics.

The COM Library is open to the public. Those wanting to access the e-books off campus or check them out must have a COM ID.
 
For more information about the COM Library, call 409-933-8448 or visit www.com.edu/library.