User's Guide
to Mount Angel Abbey Library

General Information for Users

Anyone may use Mt. Angel Abbey Library. Library cards are issued to Abbey students, faculty, staff, and monks, as well as to public patrons who pay the yearly card fee. The card entitles the holder to check out up to 25 items at one time.

1. No smoking in the building (including rest rooms, basement, lobby).
2. No eating or drinking in the library.
3. No interference with the study or reading of others by noise or other disruptive behavior.
4. No mutilation of library property or materials.
5. Internet computers are for students, faculty and staff only.  They will be provided with the password necessary to access these computers.  Public terminals for searching the online catalog are located on the southeast wall of the reference area.
6. No attempt should be made to take materials out of the building without checking them out through the circulation area.

Mount Angel Abbey Library uses an "OPAC" or Online Public Access Catalog. Our version of this computerized catalog is named Voyager. Most of the books in MAAL can be found using Voyager. Voyager also contains the holdings of the other institutions in the Online Private and Academic Library Links (OPALL) consortium. Therefore, not all the books you will find in catalog will actually be in the Mount Angel collection. (For some types of searches it is possible to limit the search to Mount Angel holdings only.)

The library catalog is easy to use. You can access it online though the OPALL web page at http://opall.mtangel.edu/. On that page, click on the "Library Catalog" button, which will take you to the search screen. You may choose to limit your searching to Mount Angel items only, or you may search the entire consortium's holdings.

After you have entered your search terms and clicked on the Do Search button, the results will appear on the screen in a short format giving title, author, location, and year. For more complete information, click on the record. If more than one library owns the item, you will need to click on the title to determine which libraries own it. You may save records to a disk, or email them to yourself, by choosing the approprite option at the bottom of the screen.

There are several ways to find out about books and articles that may be useful to your research but which will not be found in the library catalog because neither this library nor any other libraries in our Consortium owns them. You may be able to find books listed in bibliographies, book reviews, or indexes. Books that are not in Mount Angel Abbey Library can usually be borrowed from another library. See the section on Interlibrary Loan for more information about this option. If an item is of ongoing interest to Mount Angel Abbey Library patrons, the library will purchase the book. If you wish to suggest a book for purchase, please provide ordering information on the "Request for Book Purchase" form available at the circulation desk.

Mount Angel Abbey Library currently subscribes to over 300 periodicals. The journals and magazines which MAAL possesses are recorded in the online catalog. Journals can be identified on the computer screen by the word "Periodical".

The most recent issues of the journals are in the periodical room on the top floor. Journals published from 1995 to the latest complete year are arranged alphabetically in Stacks 4 through 15 on the top floor. Journals before 1995 are arranged alphabetically in the compact shelving on the lowest floor. Back runs of many journals are also available on microfilm.

MAAL subscribes to the Oregonian (daily) and a number of religious and diocesan newspapers. Back issues are kept for one year before being discarded.

The Abbey Library subscribes to EBSCOhost, which is online service providing access to over 20 different databases. Many of the databases contain full-text articles as well as citations. Some of the databases are: ATLA Religion Database, Academic Search Premier, Catholic Periodical and Literature Index, Psychology and Behavioral Sciences Collection, and MasterFile Premier. The URL for EBSCOhost is http://search.epnet.com. Anyone accessing EBSCO from anywhere on the hill will be given immediate access; if you wish to access it from off-hill, please see the Reference Librarian for the password.

The Abbey Library has a variety of CD ROMs available for use on the computers in the library. They are kept at the circulation desk. (Many of these have been installed on the computers in the reference area; you will see their icons on the computer desktop screen.) Some of the most popular CDs are:

• BibleWorks: Features include cross-references, many version and translations, and extensive search capabilities.
• Butler's Lives of the Saints
• Church Documents:  Papal documents, documents of Vatican II, and ecclesial pronouncements.
• Discovering Authors: References to the most popular authors in English.
• The Master Christian Library:  Over 300 resources on one CD, including bibles, commentaries, fiction, Summa Theologica, and much more.
• Oxford English Dictionary
• Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Over 2000 articles covering the broades range of topics in the philosophical canon, as well as philosophy from all continents and all periods. 
• Welcome to the Catholic Church: A comprehensive, fully-integrated reference to the Catholic faith. Contents: Illustrated Catholic Bible, Catholic Encyclopedic Dictionary, All Vatican II documents, The Way of the Lord Jesus, The Sources of Catholic Dogma, Lives of the Saints, Catholic Church History, Maps of historic periods and places, liturgical music, Chart of Church Structure.

If you are a student, faculty or staff member at Mount Angel Abbey and have need of a book or article that is not in the collection at Mount Angel Abbey Library, you may be able to get it at another local library. MAAL is a member of NAPCU, a consortium of private college libraries in northwestern Oregon. Your library card entitles you to check books out in all the NAPCU libraries (e.g., Willamette, Lewis & Clark, University of Portland, Reed, Pacific, Linfield, George Fox).

You may also request (at the Circulation Desk) that MAAL obtain a book for you through interlibrary loan. You can then pick the book up from MAAL and return it to MAAL, and we will send it back to the lending library. MAAL is a member of OCLC, a nationwide system of libraries with thousands of members and over 30 million titles in its computerized database. The library also owns a copy of the National Union Catalog. Hence, it is reasonably easy to identify the locations of items that the library does not have and to order them. If you wish to borrow a book through this system, please remember the following:

1. Even though we process all requests within 24 hours, it may take more than 3 weeks for a book to come; order early in the semester.
2. Make sure your information about the item you are requesting is accurate and that you have filled out the form correctly and completely.
3. We try to borrow from libraries that do not charge fees for ILL. We do not charge fees, but if the loaning library does, you are asked to pay their charges. Almost all libraries charge for photocopies of journal articles. Please be ready to pay the fees when the requested item arrives.
4. Be sure to return interlibrary loan books on time, so we can mail them back to the loaning library.
5. In deciding whether to request an ILL, it is good to recall that even if libraries do not charge each other for ILL, the costs to the library in staff time, communications, and postage amount to about $25.00 per transaction

These collections are located in the music room on the second floor. The CD collection is located under the stereo equipment and shelved by composer alphabetically. When users remove an item in these collections from any of the shelves we request that they DO NOT RESHELVE IT. Please leave it on the table for library staff to reshelve. Music CDs are checked out in the same manner as books. " Books on Tape" are classified, cataloged and shelved as books.

FirstSearch is an online service that provides access to more than 70 databases. A database record may be a bibliographic reference with abstract, a directory entry for a company, association, or person, a table of statistical or financial information, or the complete text of a chapter or article. Database subjects include religion, philosophy, humanities, arts, sciences, social sciences, business and much more. FirstSearch is an excellent tool for compiling bibliographic citations for persons who wish to research an area of study; e.g., for a thesis or senior paper. To access FirstSearch, the user will be requested to complete a search form that will enable the library online search coordinators to compose a search strategy. An interview will also be required with the search coordinators before the search can proceed. There will be a charge for this service to cover online computer connect time.

Closed carrels
The 30 closed carrels on the second floor are for the those engaged in scholarly research. Demand exceeds supply, so only those who are currently working on a project should have a carrel. Closed carrels are assigned at the beginning of each semester and of the summer according to the following schedule of priorities:

1. faculty who do not have office space in the seminary.
2. non-resident M. A. candidates.
3. other non-resident, full-time students.
4. other students engaged in research.

Those who are willing to share a carrel are given preference. Applications should be made at the Circulation Desk within the first week of each semester. Carrels will be assigned according to the criteria above by the end of the second week. A refundable deposit of $10.00 is required. Carrels that become available during the semester will be reassigned. Carrels should be used for scholarly work, not for meetings. Please do not take books into the carrels without checking them out at the circulation desk. Carrels will be occasionally checked for uncharged materials. Periodicals and reference books should not be kept in carrels. Radios and computers may be used in carrels, provided they don't bother others. No eating, drinking, or smoking is allowed. Please do not tape anything to the walls. Plants (which have stained the furniture) should not be placed in carrels. The library does not assume responsibility for the safety of items kept in carrels; they should be locked when not in use.

Open carrels
There are 40, pleasant, well-lighted open carrels for general use located along the north wall of the library. If a patron wishes to leave items in these carrels for several days, s/he should request a reserve form from the circulation desk. If this notice is left in the carrel on the patron's belongings, they will not be disturbed by library staff and books checked out in the patron's name will not be reshelved. Such reservations should not be for more than a month at a time. They may be renewed. The library does not assume any responsibility for belongings left in open carrels.

Top floor, starting at the west end, near the photocopier:

Second floor, starting at the west end:

Lowest floor:

Last updated August 2005