South College Library Blog - Library at South College

A new semester is upon us and that means it’s time for new classes, fresh routines, and another shot at doing things a little differently. Maybe you’ve already done the traditional spring cleaning - cleared out the inbox, reorganized your planner, or finally cleaned the binder that has been collecting all the spare papers. These small resets can be surprisingly powerful at clearing up mental space and resetting your focus. It’s not just your physical space that deserves a refresh, your study life might need one too. Thankfully for you, the library has you covered.

The South College Library is more than just a place to check out laptops, it’s also designed to support your academic success. Whether you want to build better habits, stay ahead of your workload, or just find a consistent place to focus, the library offers the tools and environment to help.

Rethink Your Study Environment

The foundation to strong study habits starts with your environment. Prioritizing a clean, quiet, and designated place to work can make it easier to get in the zone and maintain your focus. It also helps create a clear separation between your academic and personal life. If you're near a South College campus, you have access to library and resource spaces that can become your go-to study zone.

There are also great places to collaborate with classmates, building accountability and shared motivation - two things that are easy to lose midway through the semester. Check with your campus to see what study spaces are available, as some locations offer additional study rooms you can utilize.

Make the Most of Your Tools

The beginning of a new term is the perfect time to get well acquainted with the resources available to you, before you're buried in due dates. The library webpage includes many guides tailored to specific subjects, each program, and even some individual courses. These resources are designed to bring all the related resources together in one place so you are able to find credible, relevant information quickly.

Know Where to Turn for Help

If you find yourself stuck on something, do not wait! The Ask the Library chat button directly connects you to library staff for quick help with research or using resources. For more in-depth support, each program has a librarian assigned who knows your field and can meet with you in person or via zoom.

This spring, consider giving your study habits the same thoughtful refresh you’d give your physical space. You might be surprised by how a little intention now can lead to a semester that

feels more manageable, more productive, and a little lighter to carry. Whether you're on campus or working from home, the library is here to support you every step of the way!

Recent Posts

October's Featured Ebooks: Spooky Season

Did you know that the South College Library provides students, faculty, and staff access to over 100,000 ebooks? October is officially Spooky Season, so let’s get into the spirit with books about the paranormal, occult, and downright scary. Spooky Season Theorising the Contemporary Zombie by Conor Heffernan (Editor); Scott Eric Hamilton (Editor) Publication Date: 2022Zombies have become an increasingly popular object of research in academic studies and, of course, in popular media. Over the past decade, they have been employed to explain mathematical equations, vortex phenomena in astrophysics, the need for improved laws, issues within higher education, and even the structure of human societies. Theorising the Contemporary Zombie defines zombiism as a means of theorizing and examining various issues of society in any given era by immersing those social issues within the destabilizing context of apocalyptic crisis; and applying this definition, the volume considers issues including gender, sexuality, family, literature, health, popular culture and extinction. A History of the Vampire in Popular Culture by Violet Fenn Publication Date: 2021An exploration of the continuing appeal of vampires in cultural and social history. Our enduring love of vampires—the bad boys (and girls) of paranormal fantasy—has persisted for centuries. Author Violet Fenn takes the reader through the history of vampires in “fact” and fiction, their origins in mythology and literature, and their enduring appeal on TV and film. The book delves into the sexuality—and sexism—of vampire lore, as well as how modern audiences still hunger for a pair of sharp fangs in the middle of the night. Haunted Homes by Dahlia Schweitzer Publication Date: 2021Haunted Homes is a short but groundbreaking study of homes in horror film and television. While haunted houses can be fun and thrilling, Hollywood horror tends to focus on haunted homes, places where the suburban American dream of safety and comfort has turned into a nightmare. From classic movies like The Old Dark House to contemporary works like Hereditary and the Netflix series The Haunting of Hill House, Dahlia Schweitzer explores why haunted homes have become a prime stage for dramatizing anxieties about family, gender, race, and economic collapse. This lively and readable study reveals how and why an increasing number of films imagine that home is where the horror is. Haunted Kansas by Lisa Hefner Heitz Publication Date: 2023Who's that? Is someone there? A whisper of air brushes your cheek. Then all is still. Maybe it was just the wind. Or maybe it wasn't....The evanescent apparitions of these tales have frightened and at times amused Kansans throughout the state's long history. Yet this is the first book to capture for posterity the lively antics of the state's ghostly denizens. Besides preserving a colorful and imaginative, if intangible, side of the state's popular heritage, Heitz supplies ghost-storytellers with ample hair-raising material for, well, eternity. Maybe that person breathing softly behind you has another such story to share. Oh, no one's there? Perhaps it really was just the breeze off the prairie. Witchcraft and Adolescence in American Popular Culture by Miranda Corcoran Publication Date: 2022In the decades since the Second World War, the teenage witch has emerged as a major American cultural trope. Appearing in films, novels, comics and on television, adolescent witches have long reflected shifting societal attitudes towards the teenage demographic. At the same time, teen witches have also served as a means through which adolescent femininity can be conceptualized, interrogated and reimagined. Drawing on a wide theoretical framework—including the works of Deleuze and Foucault as well as recent new materialist philosophies—this book explores how the adolescent witch has evolved over the course of more than seventy years. Vampirology by Kathryn Harkup Publication Date: 2021Our fascination with the vampire myth has scarcely diminished since Bram Stoker's publication of the classic Dracula tale in 1897, but how much of the lore is based in fact and can science explain the origins of horror's most famous fiend? Vampirology charts the murky waters of the vampire myth – from stories found in many cultures across the globe to our sympathetic pop-culture renditions today – to investigate how a scientific interpretation may shed light on the fears and phenomena of the vampire myth. You can find these and more through the South College Library’s digital collection on the library website. ...

South College Library's Name the Skull Contest

Did you know that the Nashville Resource Center is home to a skull? No, it's not just for Halloween. Some of our Resource Centers offer hands-on anatomy models for students to use for study. One of our most personable anatomy models is this skull, posing here with Nashville-based Instruction Librarian Dayani Boatman.Even if you don't have access to this glorious specimen, the South College Library has several excellent digital anatomy tools to help you study from anywhere. AccessMedicine's 3D Human Anatomy Modules AccessPhysiotherapy's Anatomy & Physiology Revealed ToolWant to learn more and have a chance to win? Read on for the contest details and rules!Name the Skull Contest RulesBetween October 15-31, 2025, visit the Name the Skull contest page.Complete the brief tutorial on the library's digital anatomy resources and answer the required questions.Submit a name for the Nashville Resource Center's skull as well as your name and email address. You may only submit one entry. Library staff will vote on the winning name in early November. Stay tuned to the Library Blog to find out who wins!ENTER NOW...

Meet Your Library Staff: Ashley Hoffman

Ashley Hoffman is the Outreach Librarian, based at the Marietta, GA learning site. She has been with South College since August 2025. Name the question you get asked the most and share your go-to solution. “Where are all the books??” is the question I get the most these days. As a newly opened learning site, it’s true that the Marietta Resource Center doesn’t have a lot of books on the shelf (yet), but what people may not realize is that we actually have access to over 100,000 books on our website! You can find all our eBook collections at https://library.south.edu/home/ebooks. Point to one resource you wish students utilized more and why it matters. We have an amazing South College Library Blog that has tons of research tips and highlighted resources for students that is published twice a month. There’s tons of great information on it—and even some fun contests that students can participate in! What’s one behind-the-scenes task that, if skipped, students would feel tomorrow? A “thankless” task that library staff does is wipe down all of our lending laptops with disinfecting wipes between uses. Believe me, once cold and flu season is in full swing, you will thank us for this extra step! What inspired you to seek out a job in libraries? I have always loved reading, but beyond that I’ve always loved helping people. I started working part-time at my college’s library while I was in school and I’ve worked for a library ever since. My favorite jobs have been the ones that let me directly put students in touch with the resources they need for their schoolwork. If you could recommend one book that everyone should read, what would it be? I’m a science fiction fan, and I’m forever recommending the book The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula LeGuin to people who love reading but are skeptical about science fiction. This book has such a rich world to explore, such important themes, and such a fascinating “twist” at the end that I could discuss it for days. I’ve successfully converted two people into science fiction readers with this book! Bonus Question: What are your favorite spooky stories? I have always loved the short stories by Edgar Allan Poe. The creepiest one to me is “Berenice,” which—to explain it very badly—is all about a man obsessed with his fiancée’s teeth. I’ll let you read the story to find out what I mean....

September's Featured Ebooks: Remember September

Did you know that the South College Library offers students, faculty, and staff access to over 100,000 ebooks? This month's theme is Remember September, where we explore themes of nostalgia, memory, and vintage in contemporary culture and society. Start with these books of poetry, history, fashion, and medicine and then dive into the library's ebook collection to find more!Remember September Places of Memory: Spatialised Practices of Remembrance from Prehistory to Today by Christian Horn (Editor); Gustav Wollentz (Editor); Gianpiero Di Maida (Editor); Annette Haug (Editor)Publication Date: 2020Places of Memory takes a new look at spatialized practices of remembrance and its role in reshaping societies from prehistory to today, gathering researchers representing diverse but complementary fields of expertise. This collection provides important insights into the great variety of human and social reactions examining memory, encompassing aspects of remembering, the loss of memory, reclaiming memories, and remembering things that may not have happened. Food in Memory and Imagination by Beth Forrest (Editor); Greg de St. Maurice (Editor) Publication Date: 2022How do we engage with food through memory and imagination? This expansive volume spans time and space to illustrate how, through food, people have engaged with the past, the future, and their alternative presents. The editors have brought together first-class contributions, from both established and up-and-coming scholars, to consider how imagination and memory intertwine and sometimes diverge. Chapters draw on cases around the world--including Iran, Italy, Japan, Kenya, and the US--and include topics such as national identity, food insecurity, and the phenomenon of knowledge. This volume is a veritable feast for the contemporary food studies scholar. Wandering Memory by Jan J. Dominique; Emma Donovan Page (Translator) Publication Date: 2021The daughter of Haitian journalist and pro-democracy activist Jean Léopold Dominique, who was assassinated in 2000, Jan J. Dominique offers a memoir that provides a uniquely personal perspective on the tumultuous end of the twentieth century in Haiti. Wandering Memory is her elegy for a father and an ode to a beloved, suffering homeland. The book charts the biographical, emotional, and literary journey of a woman moving from one place to another, attempting to return to her craft and put together the pieces of her life in the aftermath of family tragedy. Dominique writes eloquently about love, loss, and traumas both horrifically specific and tragically universal. Was It Yesterday? by Matthew Leggatt (Editor)Publication Date: 2021Bringing together prominent transatlantic film and media scholars, Was It Yesterday? explores the impact of nostalgia in twenty-first century American film and television. Cultural nostalgia, in both real and imagined forms, is dominant today, but what does the concentration on bringing back the past mean for an understanding of our cultural moment, and what are the consequences for viewers? This book questions the nature of this nostalgic phenomenon, the politics associated with it, and the significance of the different periods, in addition to offering counterarguments that see nostalgia as prevalent throughout film and television history. The Ruins of Nostalgia by Donna StonecipherPublication Date: 2023This book presents a new series of 64 gorgeous, ramifying, unsettling prose poems by one of the most compelling and transformative writers of contemporary prose poetry. Addressing late-twentieth- and twenty-first century experience and its discontents, The Ruins of Nostalgia offers a strikingly original exploration of the misunderstood phenomenon of nostalgia as both feeling-state and historical phenomenon. Each poem is a kind of lyrical mini-essay, playful, passionate, analytic, with each taking a location, memory, conceit, or object as its theme. Written often in the fictional persona of the first-person plural, The Ruins of Nostalgia explores the rich territory where individual response meets a collective phenomenon. Vintage Menswear: a Collection from the Vintage Showroom by Josh Sims; Douglas Gunn; Roy LuckettPublication Date: 2012Classic workwear, sports, and military apparel. Curated by connoisseurs of vintage clothing, The Vintage Showroom is a vast collection of rare 20th-century pieces that fashion designers and stylists pay to view, using the cut and detailing of individual garments as inspiration for their own work. Offering one-of-a-kind access, Vintage Menswear now makes this unique resource available in book form. Providing over 300 lavishly illustrated pages of rare, must-see designs, Vintage Menswear is the essential choice of 20th-century vintage tailoring and detailing and an inspirational resource for students and menswear fashion designers and stylists. You can find these and more through the South College Library’s digital collection on the library website. ...

Spring Study Refresh

Rethink Your Study Environment

Make the Most of Your Tools

Know Where to Turn for Help