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Extended BC3 Community (not staff or students): Home

Information and access to resources for our patrons who are not BC3 staff or students.

Welcome Community Patrons

Welcome to the BC3 Library. While the BC3 Library's primary mission is to support the information needs of our students, faculty, and staff, we are also open to our extended community, which includes Butler County residents and BC3 alumni. We encourage you to get a free BC3 library card that you can use to check out books. While at the BC3 Library, you can also access our databases using the links below.

Parking - All library visitors must have a parking pass issued by the BC3 Campus Police displayed on their vehicle. These are available as either one-day or full-year passes. Go to the BC3 Library upper or lower level service desk for assistance getting a parking pass.

Find Books

BC3 LIbrary Catalog
  • Koha - BC3 Library Catalog - The catalog lists all of the print books, DVDs, CDs, journals and media resources available at the BC3 Library.
E-Books
Online Reference Books

Below are some of the new books at the BC3 Library.  See the New Books Guide for the complete list.

New Books at BC3 Library

Navigating the Collections

Here at the Heaton Family Learning Commons, we have our fiction and non-fiction split by floors: fiction is on the upper level and nonfiction is on the lower level.

  • Fiction books can be found easily; all you need is the author’s last name 
  • Non-fiction books use Dewey call numbers to organize books by subject

Other collections in the Heaton

  • New Books - upper level near the stairs and printer
  • Children's collection - lower level behind the stairs
  • Reference collection - shelved along the walls surrounding the nonfiction section, lower level
  • Oversize collection - these are extra large books shelved at the end of the nonfiction collection shelves
  • Biographies - these are split between older biographies, which are shelved alphabetically in the 92 section, and newer biographies, which are classified with Dewey within their subject areas

Order in the Library 

  • Order in the Library is a game you can play to become more familiar with finding books with Dewey.

Quick Guide to Dewey

Say you have to write a paper on ethics and the call number for the book titled Problems in Ethics is 170 M965p. If you are not familiar with DDC, this number looks confusing. However, it is following a system that is classified by numbers and letters.The 170 represents the book's subject. 170 falls within the 100s area, putting it in the Philosophy and Psychology category. The M965p portion of the call number refers to the author and book title, giving the book a unique identifier.

See below for examples of Dewey call number subject areas:

  • 000s Generalities
  • 100s Philosophy and psychology
  • 200s Religion
  • 300s Social Sciences
  • 400s Language
  • 500s Natural sciences and mathematics
  • 600s Technology and applied sciences (including medicine)
  • 700s Arts
  • 800s Literature
  • 900s Geography and history

Please see the "Finding a Book" section above for usage of the online public access catalog to find your books' call numbers.

Reference Databases and Other Resources

Reference Resources
Pro-Con Databases
Special Topics Resources

Find Articles

Find Magazine, Newspaper and Journal Articles

General Databases - cover a broad subject range
News 
Subject Databases