NOVA MEC Nursing ACEN Accreditation 2026

NOVA Libraries serve a vital role within the institution, empowering students, faculty, and staff to explore, discover, and achieve academic excellence. We are committed to providing comprehensive resources, innovative services, and a welcoming environment that fosters lifelong learning, critical thinking, and information literacy skills. Through collaboration and engagement, we support the diverse needs of our community, promote equitable access to knowledge, and inspire intellectual curiosity. We become catalysts for academic success, personal growth, and lifelong intellectual development by continuously adapting to emerging technologies and evolving pedagogical trends. 

Location: Medical Education Campus, Room 341, 6699 Springfield Center Drive, Springfield, VA 22192

Email: medlib@nvcc.edu

Phone: 703-822-6684

MEC Library Chat

24/7 Library Chat

Online appointments with a MEC Librarian

Standard Hours:

Monday - Thursday: 8:30am - 7pm (On-site and remote)

Friday: 8:30am - 5pm (On-site and remote)

All NOVA Libraries offer remote services:

Monday - Thursday: 8:30am - 7pm

Friday: 8:30am - 5pm

The NOVA Libraries are closed when the college is closed, and hours vary between academic semesters, Current hours and exceptions are here.

MEC Library Staff

The Medical Education Campus Library team consists of:

• Diane Kearney, Lead Medical Librarian [MLS, AHIP] who oversees the work of the Library (1 librarian and 2 support staff), leads the development of the library collection, and teaches library instruction. Accredited member of the Academy of Health Information Professionals [AHIP].
  • Member of the Medical Library Association NAHRS Nursing Essential Resources List (NNERL) working group. Completed the first iteration of the NNERL, an updatable resource designed for users to locate nursing information, and for collection development for information professionals. The list includes resources to support nursing practice, education, administration, and research activities.
  • Represented VCCS community college libraries on the VIVA Nursing and Health Science RFP Committee, ensuring vendor proposals aligned with state and member library needs. Participated in evaluation, negotiation, and recommendation processes, resulting in multi-year access to essential resources like EBSCO CINAHL Complete and OVID New England Journal of Medicine (effective July 2025), and facilitating opt-in pricing for additional key products from EBSCO, OVID, and ProQuest.
  • Member of the 2016 NAHRS Selected List of Nursing Journals 2016 Task Force. The resulting list is the basis of the current CINAHL Core Nursing Titles.
  • Served on the 2021-22 VIVA Open Publishing Nursing Pilot author review committee, recruiting nursing faculty and selecting authors for Virginia's first OER nursing text, Community and Public Health Nursing: A Call to Action (published 2024).
     
• Kirsten Mentzer, Instruction & Technology Librarian [MSLIS]  who leads the development and teaching of library instruction, and oversees and promotes access to emerging technologies.
  • Current member of the NOVA Center for the Advancement of Teaching Excellence's AI Community of Practice. Creating and sustaining the college's Artificial Intelligence Library Research Guide.
     
• Andrea Jensen, Collection Management & Interlibrary Loan Specialist, has a degree in Health Information Technology: provides circulation and information service to our students, faculty and staff; assists with collection development and ensures that library resources are accessible to our users locally and through intercampus and interlibrary loan.
   
• Library Technology & Research Specialist  who provides technology and reference support and assists in library instruction services. (Vacant) 

Library Instruction and Reference Services:

Instruction and reference assistance in library research skills, including the use of electronic resources and specialized medical databases, is provided by MEC’s professional librarians to individual and groups of students in their pre-requisite courses such as SDV 101 and through their program years. Library instruction can be tailored to specific NSG class assignments and course content.

• Librarians collaboratively teach evidence-based research and PICOT development in two NSG130 sections per semester, partnering with Nursing faculty to enhance students' subject searching for EBP projects. Following successful advocacy to activate CINAHL Complete's new PICOT search feature, instruction on the PICOT search feature was integrated into NSG130 sessions starting in Spring 2025.

• Each semester, librarians instruct two NSG152 sections on utilizing Social Explorer Profiles and government resources for community nursing windshield surveys. To address scheduling conflicts, the Medical Librarian developed a step-by-step Social Explorer Profiles guide, integrated into the NSG152 Canvas course

• Librarians provide individualized research assistance to NSG170 students for teratogen research projects

• To increase students' access to and engagement with the librarians, Diane and Kirsten are enrolled in these Nursing courses each semester as Librarian/Tutors: Nursing Orientation, NSG130, and the new Nursing Cohort 2027 course.

Librarians provide customized instruction to individual faculty and faculty groups upon request, utilizing in-person, synchronous, or asynchronous formats. We also design flipped learning experiences, combining asynchronous modules with synchronous, librarian-led research labs.

Remote Services include:

• Nursing Library Resource Guide is linked in every Nursing Canvas shell, including their orientation course.

• Library instruction is available in person and remotely using Canvas and Zoom. 

• Access to reference and information assistance from NOVA Librarians through our Ask A Librarian system (linked on the library website and their program’s Library Resource Guide) is available during the libraries' service hours. During the NOVA Librarians' hours, a chat can be converted to screensharing session using Zoom if a student requires more intensive assistance than the chat method can supply.

• Scheduling online appointments with a MEC or other NOVA librarian during service hours. Link is available on the library website and their program’s Library Resource Guide. Schedule an Appointment.

• Assistance available via phone and email.

• 24/7 chat reference and information services from professional librarians through our Ask A Librarian system.

The Lead Medical Librarian, leads the selection of materials for purchase, and reviews and manages the weeding of obsolete materials from the collection following the published collection development policy (Policy 232) for the college, informed by her work with the Nursing faculty as a member of the Nursing Resource Committee.

 An on-line form is available through the College Libraries website for faculty, staff and students to use to request purchases, though many faculty members prefer to email the librarian and we welcome that. Medical Library Comments-Suggestions form 

The Library also works with Nursing faculty to help locate and increase access to essential and useful resources for their instruction.

• In Spring of 2022, Nursing faculty reached out to the Library to see if we could make available teaching/training stethoscopes for the students to check out and use on campus to increase the students' practice time doing vital signs. We were able to purchase 7 training stethoscopes and are supplemented by 2 NSG department stethoscopes, these have a very robust use each semester, especially by NSG200 students.
• In 2020, the MEC Library significantly increased students' access to both print and eBook copies of current nursing drug guides and handbooks. This allowed the Nursing program to make purchasing a drug guide by students recommended rather than mandatory, reducing textbook costs for students. 
• NSG Resource Committee faculty facilitate access to multiple print copies of required texts available to the students through the Library Reserves collection. These resources are available as In-Library Use or 1-Week Reserve checkout.

The librarian uses selection tools such as:

• Doody’s Review Service - database of expert reviews of books, eBooks, and software in the health sciences. Includes the annual list of Doody Core and Essential titles in Nursing Fundamentals, Clinical Specialties, Research, Theory, Administration, and relevant titles in Basic Sciences and Clinical Medicine which are ordered each year for the collection.
• Choice Reviews for Academic Libraries.
• RCL Resources for College Libraries.
• Medical Library Association's NAHRS Nursing Essential Resources List (NNERL)
• American Journal of Nursing Annual Books of the Year. 

NOVA Libraries’ on-line resources are purchased or leased directly by the College, through the Virginia Community College System [VCCS], and through a consortial MOU with the Virtual Libraries of Virginia [VIVA]. VIVA includes all the public two-year colleges, baccalaureate and comprehensive colleges and universities in the Commonwealth of Virginia including the University of Virginia, Virginia Commonwealth University and George Mason University, and many of the private colleges and universities. NVCC students, faculty, and staff have access to more than 60 databases through VCCS and VIVA.

• EBSCO's Nursing eBook collection - originally VCCS 1 year grant, currently extended through 2025.

Potential online learning resources being considered by NOVA Libraries, including databases and learning apps, are first made available as a trial to students, faculty, and staff to solicit their feedback. Trials are typically available for 30 days, and feedback is collected through on-line surveys available to all stakeholders. Through this process the college has added Westlaw Campus Research, EBSCO’s Dentistry and Oral Science Source and Visible Body Web Suite app in the last several years.

Relevant new titles added to the Medical Education Campus Library, as well as the Course Reserves, are featured in the Nursing Library Resource Guide:  Nursing Course Reserves and New Books List.