Distance Education Library Services for Students  

Research librarians are available at all Mason Libraries:

• Fenwick Library: 703/993-2210
  
  
• Johnson Center Library: 703/993-9070
  
  
• Arlington Campus Library: 703/993-8230
  
  
• Mercer Library@Prince William Campus: 703/993-8342

You can also request reference assistance by email, or by instant message.

Or, contact subject specialist liason librarians who can help you plan and develop research strategies tailored to your subject area. Go ahead and ask us - it's what we're here for!

Use your Mason email name and password to login to licensed full text databases that allow you to search for scholarly articles and reference information in a full range of subjects.

The University Libraries have licensed access to full text articles from thousands of scholarly journals, newspapers, reference materials, and popular magazines. In many cases, the entire article can be viewed, saved, or printed right at your computer.

Database access is available 24/7 from wherever you are located.

You must be currently enrolled in a designated DE course to be consider a "Distance Ed" student and obtain enhanced Interlibrary Loan services.

To change you status login to Interlibrary Loan and click on 'Change User Information" under Tools.

inPrimo searches hundreds of millions of scholarly items simultaneously, including Mason's library catalog and digital collections.

Sign in to add additional features:

• it expands the scope of your search (you must sign in or be connected via the campus network to search the full range of available content)
• access your library account to see what you have checked out
• renew library items with a single click
• save interesting items to your "e-shelf" (click the next to an item)
• save useful searches
• build RSS feeds of result sets
• and more...

Students in Mason's distance programs may login to our Interlibrary Loan system using their Mason email name and password to request journal articles that are not available full text through a library research database.

These articles will be web posted (delivered electronically) to your account and you will be notified by university email when your item is available online. Book chapters may also be delivered electronically.

Students, faculty and staff of the University may check out materials from the Libraries using their George Mason University photo ID. Remember to include your barcode (2277...) when filling out an InterLibrary Loan request, so that we can activate and check out items to your account.

Distance students (students currently enrolled in a DE course, including students at Loudon and Front Royal) may use InterLibrary Loan to request any book whether the book is owned by Mason or not.

Books and media items from the Mason circulating collections may be borrowed, but periodicals, reference books, and some audiovisual materials do not circulate outside the Mason libraries.

If the book you need is not owned by Mason, use InterLibrary Loan to make a request for the book and we will borrow it for you from another library. You will receive a pre-paid UPS return label, use that attached UPS return label to mail the item back.

If you are a student taking courses at a Mason campus that has a library (Fairfax, Arlington, Prince William) request Mason owned books through Document Delivery and we will deliver the items to the appropriate campus library for you to pick up.

Use the e-journal finder to check if a full-text, electronic copy of a journal (including newspapers and magazines) is available.

If you wish to search for articles on a specific topic, please visit our database list.

Troubleshooting Access to E-Content from Off-Campus

View this guide if you are having trouble connecting to content like electronic  journals, articles or books from off-campus

Your Username and Password must be activated to access subscribed content (online journals, articles, books, etc paid for by Mason)

The Mason Libraries maintain an Electronic Reserves service that can be used by faculty to make readings available to students in their class, whether they are teaching at one of our campuses or online.

Access to the materials is restricted to students in the class, and students can access the materials online using a password obtained from their instructor.

The Virtual Computing Lab (VCL) provides an online, virtual computing environment that allows all faculty and students to select and use academic software resources remotely.

Login, then select the desired software and/or operating environment, schedule a time for use, and remotely connect from any location to the appropriate virtual machine(s) at the scheduled time.

Software currently available on the VCL:

• Microsoft Office
• SAS
• SPSS
• Matlab
• Mathmatic

Questions? Contact VCLhelp@gmu.edu