Restrooms are located on the main floor of the Heiner center. Exit the library, and look to the right of the stair rails and tables. There are also bathrooms on the lowest level.

The library is accessible to the mobility impaired. An elevator provides access between floors.

Your student or WCC employee ID is your library card.

The One Card program lets non-affiliated local residents use other local library cards to check out items from WCC Library. 

Community members without another local library card need to show picture ID.

Items may be renewed online in our catalog by selecting the My Account tab. Log in to view the items checked out to you, pending hold requests, and items you've marked for inclusion in My List.

You may also renew items by calling the library's Circulation Desk at 360-383-3300, or by visiting the Circulation Desk in person.

The Library Catalog is available through our website. Look for Library Catalog links.

For links to other libraries' catalogs, see Other Libraries.

This library term refers to ranges of open shelves. In our library, it refers to the shelves on the top floor where materials available for check-out are located. Our reference collection is on the main floor, and these are not available for check-out. Our online catalog will indicate where a book is located and also if it is available.

Instructors put textbooks and other materials on reserve so that they are available for all students in the class. Other types of items placed on reserve are samples of student work, such as tests and research papers.

The Closed Reserves section are at the Circulation Desk, where you first enter the library.

The self-serve Open Reserves are near the main stairs.

Items are loaned on a first-come, first-served basis. Most Reserve items are limited to in-library use for a period of 2 hours. Some Reserves items can be checked out overnight or for 3 days. 

More information about Reserves.

Although the library does not purchase textbooks for classes, instructors often put their own copies on Reserve. The library catalog allows for searching materials on reserve. There is even a special tab for searching just the Reserves.

Sometimes the library will also accept donations of older textbooks; these can be found in the Stacks.

The college bookstore has a list of texts for the current quarter and related textbook information.

The Library has several TVs with VCR and DVD players connected. These are located upstairs near room 301b. Some of the computers in the library can also be used for DVD viewing. You may borrow headphones from the Circulation Desk.

Most academic libraries, including ours, use the Library of Congress Classification System to identify where each item should live on the shelves. A chart of the call numbers and a brief description is available on our Call Number page, along with a link to the Library of Congress, and a picture of our shelves and how they are organized. If you need assistance, please don't hesitate to ask for help.

Whatcom students may check out materials from Western Washington University and most of the other libraries in the county via the One Card program. All of the library's catalogs are online. Items checked out from a participating library may be returned to any participating library.

The Bellingham and Whatcom County public library systems will deliver materials to the WCC library for their patrons. Select items from their combined online catalog and choose "Community College" for the location when placing a hold (you will need your public library card number). They will alert you when your item has been delivered to WCC. Items are placed on the cart near the self check-out station, found across from our circulation desk. You need your public library card to use the station, and Whatcom circulation staff are not available to help with checkout of public library materials.

No, the library does not have enough staff to support this service.

Loan period information is available under Policies.

Current issues of periodicals are kept on flip-up shelves along the north wall of the main floor. Backfiles of most titles are kept for one year. The periodical backfiles are shelved below each peridocial--flip up the shelf to find the old issues.

These are collections of articles from journals and magazines that are in electronic, searchable format. Often the full text of the articles is available and fully searchable. In some cases, only the citation information is available, such as the titles of the article and journal, the author, and a brief summary (aka abstract). The databases provide access to information that is not otherwise available on the web.

The library pays subscription or licensing fees and the terms require that only valid patrons access the databases. When on campus, the database providers rely on Internet Protocol addresses to determine if you are an authorized user.

When off-campus, clicking a database or vendor link will take you to a login page. Use your WCC network Username and Password to log in, and you’ll be authenticated and passed through to the database. You may also use Remote Access using VMware Client software. Both methods are limited to use by WCC students, faculty, and staff.

Access our online databases.

Articles published in periodicals that we do not have paper copies of (and that are not in any of our periodical databases in full text) can be ordered through Interlibrary Loan, just as books may be. Speak to a Reference Librarian by calling 360-383-3285 for more information. You may also submit an Interlibrary Loan Request yourself.

Yes, if you have a Network Account.

Nearly all of the computers in the library have Microsoft Office on them. Four stand-up-use-only computers are reserved for short-term uses and do not have Office installed. The computers in the Library Instruction room may be used when a class is not in session. A daily calendar showing classes is posted to the left of the Instruction room door.

If you tried double-clicking on the file name, try opening the associated program (Word, Excel, etc.) and then using the File>Open dialog box to access the file. If you don't see your file, make sure all types of files will display by setting the 'Files of Type' drop-down at the bottom of the the dialog box to All Files (*.*). If you have a word processing program other than Word, saving your files in Rich Text Format (.rtf) will maximize portability between programs.

If the file will not open properly, it is likely that your file is in an incompatible format.

Yes. You may need to save them to the computer (or campus server space) first.

Yes.

The wi-fi network on campus may be used by those who have a network account.

The wi-fi network does not have access to any of the printers on campus, but you can always log on to one of the campus computers to print.

For more information, see the MyWCC page Network Account / More Information

No.

But the Student Access Lab in HNR 104/105 has both a color copier and a color printer, as well as a scanner and a fax machine.