How can alumni use the library?

Answered By: Dean Riley

Last Updated: Nov 27, 2023 Views: 152

We are very glad of your continued interest in our library! Yes, alumni can use the library but you do need to be aware of a few things.

Services

Many of the services to which you were accustomed as a student are intended only for current students such as our database access (including E-books) and Interlibrary Loan. Also, the (physical) book checkout limit is reduced to a total of four for the benefit of current students. We certainly wish we could do more but our role is primarily to assist current students. I would highly recommend the nearest branch of Houston Public Library or Harris County Public Library. Houston Public has a more prolific database group. There are some common databases that we both use. If you are interested in E-books, both libraries do offer E-books that use an app called Overdrive. Also, they can issue TexShare cards if there are other libraries you should want to visit in the future.

Your HCU network access will probably become unusable around six months after graduation. If you have questions, you can contact HCU ITS at 281-649-3410. I'm not sure what all you can still access.

CloudSearch

The library is excited to provide a new search service to alumni search service called CloudSearch on the library's home page. It searches everything the library has: books, E-books, and subscription database articles. Of course, you can search for physical books, but you will be more interested in using in CloudSearch and the Open Access articles to which it can provide access. Open Access articles are scattered across hundreds of websites and are hard to locate. CloudSearch provides over 55 million articles that you can access for free! Most of them are peer-reviewed. When you do your search, use the filters to limit your articles to Open Access. You will not need to log in to anything along the way.

Alumni Use of CloudSearch

Start on the CloudSearch home page or the Library home page.
Run your search. Your results will appear in two tabs and will default to the book tab first. Click on the CloudSearch tab,

Look for the Open Access filter (see screenshot below).

Library contracts do not allow alumni to access our databases; however, Cloudsearch has a new feature that aggregates (gathers/collects) articles from subscription vendors, but more importantly, CloudSearch provides an alternative -- Open Access articles!

Open Access articles are essentially free articles. More importantly, they are scholarly articles and frequently peer-reviewed. Open Access probably is 70%-30% science-heavy, but the humanities are making a big push and are growing. Open Access articles are often funded by US tax dollars (federal, city, and municipal). Universities also pay fees for published authors to make their articles Open Access.

CloudSearch has over 55+ million Open Access articles AND Open Education Resources (OER). The latter primarily benefits educators and provides free textbooks to use "as is" or may give you the right to edit to suit your own needs.

NOTE: Click the Open Access filter and click "No" to limit your results to Open Access only. This will not require any login. Also, all the articles should have an orange icon (open lock).

Other Tips:

Use the date filter to limit.
Use the language filter to limit to languages that you speak.
Notice the search box above the filters. After you run your initial search, you can use this box to search against the main results.

For Educators

Educators can use the OER filters to find useful textbooks or textbooks for students. Here is license codes to know which textbooks you can edit:

	This license lets others distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon your work, even commercially, as long as they credit you for the original creation. This is the most accommodating of licenses offered. Recommended for maximum dissemination and use of licensed materials.
	This license is the most restrictive of the six main licenses, it only allows others to download the works and share them with others, as long as their authorship is acknowledged, but they cannot be changed in any way nor can they be used commercially.
	This license lets others remix, adapt, and build upon your work non-commercially, as long as they credit you and license their new creations under identical terms.
	This license lets others remix, adapt, and build upon your work non-commercially, and although their new works must also acknowledge you and be non-commercial, they don't have to license their derivative works on the same terms.
	This license lets others reuse the work for any purpose, including commercially; however, it cannot be shared with others in adapted form, and credit must be provided to you.
	This license lets others remix, adapt, and build upon your work even for commercial purposes, as long as they credit you and license their new creations under the identical terms. This license is often compared to "copyleft" free and open source software licenses. All new works based on yours will carry the same license, so any derivatives will also allow commercial use. This is the license used by Wikipedia, and is recommended for materials that would benefit from incorporating content from Wikipedia and similarly licensed projects.