Library receives over a million hits this semester

Matthew+Shellenberger%2C+academic+library+computer+support+specialist%2C+works+on+updating+the+library+website.+

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Matthew Shellenberger, academic library computer support specialist, works on updating the library website.

Alexandria Albano, Staff writer

During the month of October, Mercyhurst University’s online library search hit over one million searches with 1,261,705 searches. The full text downloads during the month of October come to a total of 10,057.

According to Penny Wise, Serials/Electronic Resources librarian and associate director of the Ridge Library, this happened last year as well in the months of October and November.

Darci R. Jones, director of University Libraries and Distance Learning, along with Wise, are two assets behind the scenes at the Mercyhurst library. They both take part in data analysis with the libraries at the main Mercyhurst campus and the North East campus.

Jones emphasizes how the library resources are used.

“There is a huge underworld of stuff going on in the library. Today there is 5 percent of people checking out actual books and the other percent is checking online sources and eBooks,” she said.

“We have about 50 databases. This ‘search everything’ tool has most sources indexed by EBSCO. It would take a long time if it was not indexed. … It searches everything,” said Wise. “The problem is the amount of sources that come up. The students need to be able to narrow it down. The boxes on the side allow it to be narrowed down. It’s really quick and easy.”

The library still accommodates the students’ needs. With the changes of time electronically, the library has become more electronic.

“Over the past five years, we have switched from buying print books to the electronic books… There’s over 120,000 electronic journal magazines,” Wise said.

Jones further states the positivity of this search engine.

“It takes less time than compared to Google. … We have everything covered. We want to expand our resources,” Jones said.

The library is very student-oriented since students are those who use the library most of the time. It was stressed that different fields of study also are covered within this search tool as well.

The number of searches shows the advantages and success through using the library’s search engine over Google and Google Scholar.