Virtual Library & LIRN
Welcome to the South Hills Virtual Library!
South Hills School of Business & Technology's Learning Resources System
The Virtual Library provides South Hills faculty and students with access to various online resources. It is organized into the following categories: General Resources, Class Specific Resources, and Program Specific Resources.
Download the Library Manual [4.5MB] for instructions how to use library and LIRN resources.
Accessing LIRN: Library and Information Resources Network
LIRN provides access to millions of full text articles, news releases, book chapters, and reference items like encyclopedias, plus e-books, audio, and video resources.
To gain access to LIRN, click here to log in to Canvas. Once logged in, enter into a course, and you will find the LIRN Library link on the left-hand menu.
General Resources
Online Libraries & Digital Books
Local Regional Public Libraries
- Access Pennsylvania - Find books, movies, and more in over 2,500 PA libraries
- Altoona Area Public Library
- American Philatelic Research Library (Stamps.org) - Located in Bellefonte
- Centre County Library - Branches in Aaronsburg, Bellefonte, Centre Hall, and Philipsburg
- Holt Memorial Library
- Mifflin County Library - Located in Lewistown
- Schlow Centre Region Library - Located in State College
Public e-Libraries
- Bartleby.com
- Google Books Search
- National Academies Press Home Page
- Open Books Project
- Project Gutenberg
- UPenn Online Books Page
- University of Virginia VIRGO
- Virtual Learning Resources Center
- Web-books.com
Penn State Libraries
- Pennsylvania State University Libraries
- Sign up for a Friends of Penn State account to be able to place holds on items in the catalog, view your library account, and renew books.
- Information for PSU Libraries visitors
- The Libraries are open to the public at all times. The Libraries have access to online databases and full text articles.
How To Use Google Books
- Full View - Allows you to view any full page from the book. Available only if the publisher or author has asked to make the book fully viewable, or if the book is in the Public Domain (out of copyright). PDF versions of Public Domain works can be downloaded, saved, and/or printed.
- Limited Preview - Displays a limited number of pages from a copyrighted book as a preview if the publisher or author has given Google permission.
- Snippet View - Displays basic information about a copyrighted book plus a few sentences (a snippet) to display your search term in context.
- No Preview Available - Displays only basic information about a copyrighted book.
- The Advanced Search allows you to limit searches to Full View only.
Book Websites
- BetterWorldBooks - Economically priced new and used books shipped free
- The Free Library by Farlex - Books and articles
- Internet Archive - Download millions of free books, texts, moving images, and audio files
- Just Free Books - Find public domain, open books, fee audio books, and ad-supported books
- ManyBooks.net - Over 25,000 books to download for free
- Planet eBook - Classic literature for download as free eBooks
- Project Gutenberg - Access to over 30,000 free books you can download
- U.S. Government Printing Office - Online access to government information submitted by Congress and Federal agencies
- WorldCat - Find items in libraries nearby (not a full text resource)
- Wright American Fiction - 19th Century American fiction
Digitized Collections
- Digitized Collections at Penn State - Books, photos, slides, articles
- Library of Congress American Memory - Browse collections by topic
- Library of Congress Digital Collections - Access to print, pictorial, and audio-visual collections
- OAIster - Digital resources from over 1,000 libraries and institutions
- Pennsylvania Digital Library - Metadata repository of digital resources from libraries, museums, educational institutions and other cultural heritage organizations
- Smithsonian Institution Libraries - Digital Collections
- World Digital Library - Makes primary materials from countries and cultures around the world available on the internet, free of charge and in multilingual format
Articles
News
- Associated Press - The essential global news network
- Reuters - Headline news plus more
- Today's Front Pages - 823 pages from 80 countries
General
- Biography - Biographies of famous people [ How to cite this site ]
- Bureau of Transportation Statistics (Research and Innovative Technology Administration)
- Consumer Reports - Product ratings and articles
- Directory of Open Access Journals - Scientific and scholarly journals
- Google Scholar - Scholarly literature
- Pennsylvania State Data Center - Demographic and economic data
- Pew Internet & American Life Project - Research reports on the use of technology and the Internet
- U.S. Census Bureau - Population and household economic topics
- U.S. Department of Agriculture - [ Agriculture Fact Book ]
Technology
- First Monday - Articles about the Internet and global information infrastructure
- Internet.com
- Magportal.com - Magazine articles about the Internet
- Wired - Computer and technology news in business, medicine, culture
Business
- Advertising Age - News about advertising and marketing
- Bloomberg - Business and finance
- Business Week - Business, finance, technology, marketing
- CNN Money
- Creative Magazine
- Forbes - Business, finance, leadership, markets
- FORTUNE Magazine Archives
- Hoovers - Information on more than 12 million companies
- Mediaweek - TV ratings, news on television industry
- Securities and Exchange Commission - Information on publicly traded companies
- The Wall Street Journal
- U.S. Census Bureau - Economic census
- Yahoo! Finance
Health
- Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
- Healthfinder.gov - U.S. Dept of Health & Human Services
- HighWire - Stanford University articles on science
- Medline Plus - U.S. National Library of Medicine & National Institutes of Health (NIH) consumer health information
- Merck Manual - Information on specific diagnoses
- PubMed Central - NIH archive of literature
Reference Guides & Online Tools
Reference Guides
- Abbreviations - Acronyms & abbreviations directory
- Answers.com - Questions & answers
- Ask Here PA - Ask a librarian a question
- Bartleby.com Reference Section
- Big Huge Thesaurus
- The Blue Book of Grammar and Punctuation
- Convert.net - Conversion calculator
- Dictionary.com
- Definr - Incredibly fast dictionary
- Glossary of Internet Terms
- Guide to Grammar and Writing
- How Stuff Works
- Instructables - How to make stuff
- MathWorld
- Merriam-Webster Online
Reference Guides (con't.)
- One Look - Links to many dictionaries
- Purdue University's Online Writing Lab (The OWL)
- Quotes
- Refdesk.com
- The St. Martin's Handbook
- TimeAndDate.com - Local times around the world, date calculators, calendars, weather around the world
- Virtual Reference Shelf
- Visuwords - Graphical dictionary
- Webopedia - Dictionary of computer and Internet technology
- Wikipedia
Online Tools
- Create surveys: Polldaddy or SurveyMonkey
- Dabbleboard - Digital whiteboard
- Diigo - Research tool/knowledge-sharing community
- Doodle - Schedule a meeting
- Evernote - Save and archive web pages, notes, photos, or memos and access them from any computer
- Feed My Inbox - Sends blogs, feeds, news directly to your email
- Flickr - Creative Commons option for sharing photos
- Library Thing - Cataloging and social networking site for book lovers
- Personal web portals: iGoogle or My Yahoo or Netvibes
- Slideshare - Share PowerPoint, Word, & PDF documents
- StumbleUpon - Discover cool stuff personalized to you
- TinyURL - Make a long web address shorter to make sharing easier
Class Specific Resources
Business English I, II, & III
Business Law
Business Law
Human Relations
Human Relations
Job Search Skills
Microsoft Office & Windows Tutorials
Online Keyboarding Classes
Online Keyboarding Classes
Personal Development
Personal Development
Program Specific Resources
Administrative Professional
Administrative Professional (Business Office Specialist)
- Certification Sites:
- Microsoft Office Tutorials
Business Administration—Management & Marketing
Business Administration—Management & Marketing
Diagnostic Medical Sonography
Diagnostic Medical Sonography
- AIUM
- American College of Phlebology
- American Society of Echocardiography
- Annals of Vascular Surgery
- ARDMS
- British Society of Echocardiography
- Canadian Society of Echocardiography
- Cardiac Embryology by Toronto Gen. Hospital PIE
- Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
- E-chocardiography Journal from University of Medicine & Dentistry New Jersey
- Echocardiography Tutorials
- Sonoworld
- Student Consult (The Developing Human Clinically Oriented Embryology by Keith Moore)
- Technology for Diagnostic Sonography - Online Resources
- University of Minnesota Atlas of Human Cardiac Anatomy
- University of Minnesota Web Anatomy Game
- University of Washington HEART SOUNDS
- VascularWeb
- Virtual Transthoracic Echocardiography (TTE) Website
Engineering Technology
Engineering Technology
- ASTM International - (formerly American Society for Testing and Materials) Research Project
- Architectural CAD of Weebly - This course focuses on architectural drafting for Engineering Technology students. Students learn the principles of light construction including types of construction, structural members, and details. Building codes and specifications are also reviewed. The students draw complete projects in CAD software.
- Centre County Pennsylvania GIS - Resources available are aerial photos, topographic maps, tax maps, zoning, soils, and much more. This site is free and allows the user to print a copies of the maps they create.
- efunda - efunda is an online publisher for original engineering content and software. They offer over 30,000 pages of engineering fundamentals and calculators.
- Engineers Edge - Includes dimensional data on standard hardware, material, finishing specifications, typical design criteria, and manufacturing processes.
- MatWeb - A materials information database with data on 24,529 materials including metals, plastics, ceramics, and composites.
- PASDA - (Pennsylvania Spatial Data Access) Lesson Plan: Resources for Site Development
- Periodic Table of Videos - Short videos about every element on the periodic table, plus other cool experiments and chemistry stuff
- U.S. Geological Survey - Lesson Plan: Resources for Site Development
- Web Elements - Lots of information on each element in the Periodic Table.
- Wolfram Alpha – This site aims to collect and curate all objective data; implement every known model, method, and algorithm; and make it possible to compute whatever can be computed about anything.
- Wolfram Demonstrations Project - Animations that illuminate concepts in science, technology, mathematics, art, finance, and a remarkable range of other fields.
Graphic Arts
Information Technology and Software Development and Programming