Learning Commons Services and Resources

Your LSC ID serves as your library card and gives you easy access to the library's online resources from off-campus, the Fitness Center on-campus, the rec. center and student life events, and it may help you obtain student discounts from community stores and shops that offer one. For off-campus access to eBooks, articles, and streaming video from the library's databases, use the 14-digit barcode number on the back. You will also use your student ID to add cash to your Print Account so you can copy and print in the library. Go to the service desk of any Lone Star College library. You will need a photo ID, your student ID number, and you must be registered for classes. Of course, we also provide IDs to faculty and staff! If you are an online only student, complete the form at http://www.LoneStar.edu/library/card. Make sure you use your Lone Star email address, and the library circulation staff will send you a barcode number to access the library's online resources!

You will need to set up a Print Account and then add money to it: Signing in to any print release station to set up your print account. Adding funds: Use your LSC ID (issued since June of 2015) to add exact cash at an Add Value station. (Need a new ID? see #1). OR, go to MyPrintCenter and select the Add Funds link to add a minimum of $5 using your debit or credit card or PayPal account. Note: PayPal funds may take a little longer to show up in your account. You will find a link to MyPrintCenter under the Quicklinks in your MyLoneStar portal.

The Learning Commons is an open-space design. The furniture in the space is designed for both group and individual study needs. Partitions, tables, and mobile whiteboards can be moved around to create a study space to fit your needs. - We encourage it! - There are two collaboration stations where you can plug in your laptop and project onto a TV for the entire group to work on a project or study for a test. If your laptop does not have an HDMI port, don't worry, we have adapter cables at the service desk that you may borrow.

In order to find books and other materials in a library, we have to have a way to organize it all to make it easy for you to find. Librarians manage large collections by giving each item an identifier. Think of it like the book's license plate number. We use databases called the catalog to search for these items. Once you have chosen which item you want, you need to find on the page the book's call number. This is the license plate or classification number. This is how you will be able to find it on the shelf. The Lone Star College Libraries use the Library of Congress classification system. It was created in the twentieth century to help organize the world's largest collection of material that is housed in Washington D.C. It is alpha-numeric, which means that it uses letters and numbers to help organize all the information into twenty-one broad subject categories. You will find that most academic libraries use this classification system. The great thing about having books well organized is that you'll be able to find more material with the same subject matter on the shelves around the book that you went to find. Public libraries and school libraries tend to use the Dewey Decimal system, which only has ten subject classes that simply use numbers.

In the library's online catalog, you can search for books and other material from the LSC-Libraries, Harris County, and Montgomery County libraries. Once you find an item that Kingwood does not have, you can request the item by clicking on the Place Hold button on the right-hand side of the screen. A pop-up window will appear and will ask you for your Library Card number and Pin. Your library card number is the 14 digit number above the long barcode on the back of your student ID (the top set of numbers). Your pin is the last 4 digits of the phone number that you provided when you got your student ID. If you have forgotten it, you may call the Circulation team to see if they can remind you of the number or reset it (281-312-1691).

Various resources have different borrowing time frames and fines. The table below provides the details for the various types of borrowed material:

 

Item	Loan Period	Number of Times You May Renew	Fines
Circulating Book	2 weeks	x 2	$0.25/day
Circulating Videos	2 weeks	x 1	$0.25/day
Reserve Items	2 hours	permission required	$0.50/hour
Laptops	4 hours	0	$5.00/hour

If a checked out item is overdue, your check out privileges are suspended. You will have a hold on your academic record until the overdue material are returned and fines are cleared. If the item is damaged, lost, or stolen, you will be charged the cost of replacing it..

You can pay the fine online or at the Business Office. You will need to bring proof of payment to a circulation employee before your account is cleared.

If an item is found in the Learning Commons, we will hold on to it for a certain amount of time. See below for details.

Item	Hold Duration
Valuable items: jewelry, phones, keys	Immediately given to police
Glasses and clothing	2 weeks
Technology accessories: wires, chargers, flash drives	2 weeks
Listening devices: earbuds, headphones	2 weeks
Beverage containers: travel mugs, water bottles	24 hours
Textbooks	2 weeks
Notebooks	2 weeks

Lone Star College-Kingwood's FAFSA number is: 011145