Like many American college libraries, the Virginia Tech Libraries have open stacks where the material is arranged in call number order so you can browse and retrieve materials yourself.

• Borrowing privileges (check out periods, maximum number of items, overdue fines)
• How to check out books
• How to read call numbers (PDF | 313KB)
• Borrow books and more from other libraries with interlibrary loan
• Access online resources from off campus
• Library hours
• Get a library card for family members

Your instructors will expect you to make use of scholarly materials for your research and academic assignments (not just web sites found through Google). You'll need to understand how academic integrity requires documenting your sources.

• Glossary of library terms
• Getting started with academic research
• Library classes and workshops
• Library database webinars
• Newman Library tour options
• Plagiarism and citing sources
• Writing Center
• English grammar books and ebooks
• Academic writing guides
• Citation and writing style guides

We have lots of non-English language books and movies, plus resources for learning English and other languages.

Language learning materials

The libraries have books, CDs, and software to help students learn languages. The Language Resource Center offers all available Rosetta Stone languages, including English.

Find non-English language books and DVDs

Most of our foreign language materials are novels and other forms of literature. You can search Addison, the library catalog, and limit your results by language. This will show both materials in the language and English translations of those materials, though the language of the title will often indicate which language an item is in.

International newspapers

We receive some major international newspapers in print (on the 2nd floor of Newman Library). We also have access to hundreds of international newspapers in English and other languages. You can search the Journal Title Database for links and date ranges.

If you need assistance translating materials, bilingual dictionaries are a great resource. We have foreign language dictionaries online and in print.

• Online dictionaries
  • Bilingual Dictionaries from Oxford Reference Online
  • English Language Encyclopedias from Oxford Reference Online
  • Oxford English Dictionary
• Print dictionaries
  • Arabic-English
  • Chinese-English
  • French-English
  • German-English
  • Italian-English
  • Japanese-English
  • Korean-Engish
  • Persian-English
  • Spanish-English
  • Russian-English
  • Turkish-English
  • Vietnamese-English
  • for other languages, so a subject search like the ones above: language - dictionaries - english