USC Library

Introduction

The Library at each campus is designated for study and research, focuses on educational program support, and emphasizes reference works, current periodicals, professional journals, and access to electronic resources, ranging from the Internet to specialized research databases.

The Library provides the services of a library professional at each campus, maintains a Library at each campus, participates in the OCLC InterLibrary Loan System, and is a member of the Central New York Library Resources Council.

Hours

The Library hours vary by branch/campus location, but as a general rule, the Library is open whenever the branch campus is open. Generally, the branches are open Monday through Thursday, 7:30 am – 10:00 pm, and Friday, 7:30 am – 4:00 pm. However, it is recommended that you contact your branch office for verification, or to be made aware of any changes. Hours of reference assistance also vary by location.

Circulation Policy

The Circulation Policy (signing out materials) may vary slightly at separate branch/campus locations, to reflect the collection of that campus, but generally, the Library restricts lending to registered USC students, staff members, and off-campus through InterLibrary Loan requests. For exact details at your location, it is recommended that you stop in the Library or branch office for further information.

Faculty Reserve Collection

Occasionally, faculty members may wish to place articles, copies of articles, books from their personal collection, or other similar materials in the Library for use by their current students. Regulations regarding their circulation and/or copying are determined by the instructor and by copyright regulation.

Reference Collection

The USC Libraries contain general-purpose reference materials such as Encyclopedias, and Dictionaries, as well as subject-specific reference materials such as The GAAP Guide (for accounting), CPT or ICD-9 (medical coding reference books) used for our programs of instruction. Both general-purpose and subject-specific reference materials must be used in the Library, and may not be signed out.

Print Periodicals

USC maintains a collection of Print Periodicals (paper format newspapers, magazines, and journals) at each campus branch Library. In many cases, titles are duplicated at each branch to increase student access to these materials. Example: Business Week, Time, Newsweek, The Wall Street Journal, and others are available at each branch location. Some titles, usually one requested by only one faculty member for his/her classes, may not be available at all three locations.

Electronic Resources

The Utica School of Commerce Libraries provide unlimited Internet access at all three Library locations, as well as access to specialized database access for course and program support. Under our current Terms of Agreement with our database provider, database access is limited to USC students and employees.

Plagiarism

The improper use of intellectual property, or plagiarism, is a growing problem in the academic world, due to the ease of access to materials, especially through electronic resources. USC is sensitive to this problem and makes every effort to detect cases of plagiarism on or off campus.

Students and faculty are reminded that the Student Handbook also addresses this issue and its serious consequences. Students and faculty are responsible for avoiding plagiarism.

Style Manuals

USC recognizes the need for consistent formatting of bibliographic citations, and as such, currently endorses use of the MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers, published by the Modern Language Association (MLA), as the official USC style manual. While an occasional deferment to another style manual may be made by the administration for academic purposes, the MLA selection is the default choice.

Also known simply as the MLA Handbook, users should be aware that the MLA publishes a second style manual for graduate level research publication, under a different title. A copy of the MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers is available at all three campus locations in the Reference collection, and may not be signed out of the Library.