Suggested Tutorial
Image by Maicon Fonseca Zanco from Pixabay
Try these short and interactive self-paced modules to gain some practice in searching the library catalog for books and other materials.
- Introducing the Library Catalog The Raymond F. Damato Library catalog (Manchester campus) provides simple, one-stop searching for books and e-books, videos, articles, digital media, and more. This learning module will introduce students to the many search and account features, as well as how to request materials from other libraries in the Connecticut State Colleges and Universities (CSCU) system and the CT State Library. By the end of this learning module students will be able to: Discover materials in various formats (print, online, etc.) by title or topic keywords Limit your results by format, date, location and other filters Request items owned by other CSCU campuses and the CT State Library
- Using Books for Research By the end of this learning module students will be able to: Locate books in the Library's collection on their topic Determine whether a book is an appropriate source depending on the information need Recognize their role and active participation in scholarly communication Effectively use search tools and a book's index to identify relevant chapters or sections
Search the Library Catalog
The Manchester Library Catalog Search provides simple, one-stop searching for books and e-books, videos, articles, digital media, and more. Sign-in with your NetID and password to:
- Request items be placed on hold
- Renew books and videos
- Request items owned by other CSCU libraries
- Create favorites lists
- View full search results. (Some databases only show results when you're signed in.)
Find eBooks
Esther Vargas, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Flickr
We also have a number of eBook databases that you can search individually.
- eBook Central College Complete This link opens in a new window College Complete is a comprehensive ebook subscription that helps prepare students for academic and career success. This resource covers all academic subject areas and content for in-demand trade jobs. Gain access to content in traditional disciplines like business, management and nursing; emerging areas like artificial intelligence (AI) and criminal justice; and topics to support specific skills like advanced manufacturing, construction and healthcare.
- Diversity & Ethnic Studies eBook Collection This link opens in a new window This subscription collection includes academic eBooks related to diversity, anti-racism, ethnic studies, disability studies, gerontology & age studies, migration studies, gender and sexuality studies, cultural studies, and religious studies. The collection utilizes outside resources and scholarship to ensure that the collection remains up to date and aligned with current research. View the EBSCO Search Tutorial Video
- EBSCO eBooks Academic Subscription Collection This link opens in a new window Access a cross-searchable, multidisciplinary library of over 210,000 high-quality, unlimited-user e-books from leading university presses and academic publishers such as Cambridge University Press, De Gruyter, Elsevier, Harvard University Press, John Wiley & Sons, Oxford University Press, Sage Publications, State University of New York Press, Taylor & Francis, and University of California Press. These ebooks cover a large section of academic subjects and new titles are added the collection continuously. View the EBSCO Search Tutorial Video
- MLA Handbook Plus This link opens in a new window Access the new ninth edition of the MLA Handbook online through the library. Browse or search the book online, get citation examples, view sample papers. This resource also includes the MLA Style 101 tutorial, MLA Guide to Digital Literacy and MLA Guide to Undergraduate Research in Literature.
- SAGE eBooks This link opens in a new window Sage Academic eBooks Explore the ultimate Social Science eBook Collection of over 5,000 titles, including books on nursing and health, media, communication, social studies, politics and leadership.
Jimmy Santiago Baca Memoir
A Place to Stand by
Jimmy Santiago Baca's harrowing, brilliant memoir of his life before, during, and immediately after the years he spent in a maximum-security prison garnered tremendous critical acclaim and went on to win the prestigious 2001 International Prize. Long considered one of the best poets in America today, Baca was illiterate at the age of twenty-one and facing five to ten years behind bars for selling drugs. A Place to Stand is the remarkable tale of how he emerged after his years in the penitentiary -- much of it spent in isolation -- with the ability to read and a passion for writing poetry. A vivid portrait of life inside a maximum-security prison and an affirmation of one man's spirit in overcoming the most brutal adversity, A Place to Stand "stands as proof there is always hope in even the most desperate lives" -- (Fort Worth Morning Star-Telegram). "A Place to Stand is a hell of a book, quite literally. You won't soon forget it." -- Luis Urrea, The San Diego Union-Tribune "This book will have a permanent place in American letters." -- Jim Harrison
Call Number: https://cscu-mcc-primo.hosted.exlibrisgroup.com/permalink/f/v9pc80/01CSCU_NETWORK_ALMA7181192740003451ISBN: 0802139086Publication Date: 2002-06-10
- A Place to Stand (Internet Archive Copy 1)You can also access three free digital copies through the Internet Archive. You will need to create a free account to borrow materials. You can borrow a copy of the book for an hour or 14 days (open the drop down menu to see both options). If a copy is unavailable, you can sign up for the waiting list.
Featured Print Books & Ebooks
From the War on Poverty to the War on Crime by
In the United States today, one in every thirty-one adults is under some form of penal control, including one in eleven African American men. How did the "land of the free" become the home of the world's largest prison system? Challenging the belief that America's prison problem originated with the Reagan administration's War on Drugs, Elizabeth Hinton traces the rise of mass incarceration to an ironic source: the social welfare programs of Lyndon Johnson's Great Society at the height of the civil rights era. Johnson's War on Poverty policies sought to foster equality and economic opportunity. But these initiatives were also rooted in widely shared assumptions about African Americans' role in urban disorder, which prompted Johnson to call for a simultaneous War on Crime. The 1965 Law Enforcement Assistance Act empowered the national government to take a direct role in militarizing local police. Federal anticrime funding soon incentivized social service providers to ally with police departments, courts, and prisons. Under Richard Nixon and his successors, welfare programs fell by the wayside while investment in policing and punishment expanded. Anticipating future crime, policymakers urged states to build new prisons and introduced law enforcement measures into urban schools and public housing, turning neighborhoods into targets of police surveillance. By the 1980s, crime control and incarceration dominated national responses to poverty and inequality. The initiatives of that decade were less a sharp departure than the full realization of the punitive transformation of urban policy implemented by Republicans and Democrats alike since the 1960s.
Call Number: Manchester Damato Library Library STACKS HV9950 .H56 2016ISBN: 9780674737235Publication Date: 2016-05-02
The New Jim Crow by
Despite the triumphant dismantling of the Jim Crow Laws, the system that once forced African Americans into a segregated second-class citizenship still haunts America, the US criminal justice system still unfairly targets black men and an entire segment of the population is deprived of their basic rights. Outside of prisons, a web of laws and regulations discriminates against these wrongly convicted ex-offenders in voting, housing, employment and education. Alexander here offers an urgent call for justice.
Call Number: STACKS HV9950 .A437 2010ISBN: 9781595581037Publication Date: 2010-01-05
Prisoners Once Removed by
Imprisonment casts a long shadow in the United States. Currently, 1.4 million individuals are behind bars in America's state and federal prisons. For every person who goes to prison, there is a family and community left behind. Despite the huge number of affected families and children, there is little research on the impact of incarceration on American family life. In Prisoners Once Removed, the authors explore this important issue-from the psychological impact of imprisonment on prisoners and the difficulty of reentering free society to the challenges faced by communities who must integrate the prisoners once they return. They look at family functioning during a period of imprisonment, and how families are affected by the return of an incarcerated parent. Finally, they evaluate the current system and suggest ways to improve interaction between the corrections and health and human services to better serve the growing population of children, families, and communities. This book is vital reading for anyone who is concerned about foster care, child development, strengthening families, and post-prison adjustment.
Call Number: STACKS HV8886.U5 P75 2003ISBN: 9780877667155Publication Date: 2004-01-05
From the War on Poverty to the War on Crime by
Co-Winner of the Thomas J. Wilson Memorial Prize A New York Times Notable Book of the Year A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice A Wall Street Journal Favorite Book of the Year A Choice Outstanding Academic Title of the Year A Publishers Weekly Favorite Book of the Year In the United States today, one in every thirty-one adults is under some form of penal control, including one in eleven African American men. How did the "land of the free" become the home of the world's largest prison system? Challenging the belief that America's prison problem originated with the Reagan administration's War on Drugs, Elizabeth Hinton traces the rise of mass incarceration to an ironic source: the social welfare programs of Lyndon Johnson's Great Society at the height of the civil rights era. "An extraordinary and important new book." --Jill Lepore, New Yorker "Hinton's book is more than an argument; it is a revelation...There are moments that will make your skin crawl...This is history, but the implications for today are striking. Readers will learn how the militarization of the police that we've witnessed in Ferguson and elsewhere had roots in the 1960s." --Imani Perry, New York Times Book Review
ISBN: 9780674969223Publication Date: 2016-05-02
The New Jim Crow by
Seldom does a book have the impact of Michelle Alexander's The New Jim Crow. Since it was first published in 2010, it has been cited in judicial decisions and has been adopted in campus-wide and community-wide reads; it has been the winner of numerous prizes, including the NAACP Image Award; and it has spent nearly 250 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list. Most important of all, it has spawned a whole generation of criminal justice reform activists motivated by Michelle Alexander's unforgettable argument that 'we have not ended racial caste in America; we have merely redesigned it.'
ISBN: 9781620975459Publication Date: 2020-01-07
The Growth of Incarceration in the United States by
After decades of stability from the 1920s to the early 1970s, the rate of imprisonment in the United States more than quadrupled during the last four decades. The U.S. penal population of 2.2 million adults is by far the largest in the world. Just under one-quarter of the world's prisoners are held in American prisons. The U.S. rate of incarceration, with nearly 1 out of every 100 adults in prison or jail, is 5 to 10 times higher than the rates in Western Europe and other democracies. The U.S. prison population is largely drawn from the most disadvantaged part of the nation's population: mostly men under age 40, disproportionately minority, and poorly educated. Prisoners often carry additional deficits of drug and alcohol addictions, mental and physical illnesses, and lack of work preparation or experience. The growth of incarceration in the United States during four decades has prompted numerous critiques and a growing body of scientific knowledge about what prompted the rise and what its consequences have been for the people imprisoned, their families and communities, and for U.S. society. The Growth of Incarceration in the United States examines research and analysis of the dramatic rise of incarceration rates and its affects. This study makes the case that the United States has gone far past the point where the numbers of people in prison can be justified by social benefits and has reached a level where these high rates of incarceration themselves constitute a source of injustice and social harm. The Growth of Incarceration in the United States recommends changes in sentencing policy, prison policy, and social policy to reduce the nation's reliance on incarceration. The report also identifies important research questions that must be answered to provide a firmer basis for policy. The study assesses the evidence and its implications for public policy to inform an extensive and thoughtful public debate about and reconsideration of policies.
ISBN: 9780309298018Publication Date: 2014-05-24
After Life Imprisonment by
One out of every ten prisoners in the United States is serving a life sentence--roughly 130,000 people. While some have been sentenced to life in prison without parole, the majority of prisoners serving 'life' will be released back into society. But what becomes of those people who reenter the everyday world after serving life in prison? In After Life Imprisonment, Marieke Liem carefully examines the experiences of "lifers" upon release. Through interviews with over sixty homicide offenders sentenced to life but granted parole, Liem tracks those able to build a new life on the outside and those who were re-incarcerated. The interviews reveal prisoners' reflections on being sentenced to life, as well as the challenges of employment, housing, and interpersonal relationships upon release. Liem explores the increase in handing out of life sentences, and specifically provides a basis for discussions of the goals, costs, and effects of long-term imprisonment, ultimately unpacking public policy and discourse surrounding long-term incarceration. A profound criminological examination, After Life Imprisonment reveals the untold, lived experiences of prisoners before and after their life sentences.
ISBN: 9781479806928Publication Date: 2016-09-20
The Punishment Imperative by
Clear and Frost chart the rise of penal severity in the U.S. and the forces necessary to end it Over the last 40 years, the US penal system has grown at an unprecedented rate--five times larger than in the past and grossly out of scale with the rest of the world. In The Punishment Imperative, eminent criminologists Todd R. Clear and Natasha A. Frost argue that America's move to mass incarceration from the 1960s to the early 2000s was more than just a response to crime or a collection of policies adopted in isolation; it was a grand social experiment. Tracing a wide array of trends related to the criminal justice system, this book charts the rise of penal severity in America and speculates that a variety of forces--fiscal, political, and evidentiary--have finally come together to bring this great social experiment to an end. The authors stress that while the doubling of the crime rate in the late 1960s represented one of the most pressing social problems at the time, it was instead the way crime posed a political problem--and thereby offered a political opportunity--that became the basis for the great rise in punishment. Clear and Frost contend that the public's growing realization that the severe policies themselves, not growing crime rates, were the main cause of increased incarceration eventually led to a surge of interest in taking a more rehabilitative, pragmatic, and cooperative approach to dealing with criminal offenders that still continues to this day. Part historical study, part forward-looking policy analysis, The Punishment Imperative is a compelling study of a generation of crime and punishment in America.
ISBN: 1479829021Publication Date: 2013-01-01
Request Materials from Other Libraries
Interlibrary Loan (ILL) is the process of requesting material not held by our library/consortium from other libraries. Please allow 1-2 weeks processing time for physical books and media and 1-3 days for articles/book chapters. REQUEST INTERLIBRARY LOAN
If you have any questions/concerns please email Christi Geisinger