By Jillian McIntosh
The Wilcox Curriculum Resource Center is a branch of the William F. Maag, Jr. Library created for all students, faculty and staff at Youngstown State University.
Located on the main floor of Beeghly Hall, the CRC provides children’s literature, games, puppets, kits and books in education, special education, school psychology and counseling.
Alyssa Annico, the curriculum resource librarian, said these resources are ready to use with a valid YSU ID.
“It’s really easy to borrow materials from the CRC. All you need is your YSU ID and you can either use your card or the virtual ID, which is on the YSU app,” Annico said.
Materials can be borrowed through the end of the semester.
“Most of the books check out until the last day of the semester. Then, all our goofy things like puppets and games, they all check out for a week with three renewals. But there’s no limit on how many things can be checked out at once,” Annico said.
Although the CRC provides materials for counseling and education, Annico said the CRC is meant for students of every major.
“Even if you’re not an education major — maybe you’re taking a chemistry class and you don’t really remember chemistry, we have element flashcards. We have periodic table plastic tiles that you can come borrow and put together,” Annico said.
According to Annico, over 23,000 items were checked out and renewed from the CRC so far this year.
Abbey Crawford, senior integrated language arts education major, is one of the many students who have used the CRC.
“I know this coming semester and during student teaching, I’ll use [the CRC] more because for my major I have to record lessons,” Crawford said. “I borrowed a couple books that I used for different lesson plans … I’ve also borrowed different curriculum sheets for me to be able to get ideas as to what I wanted the students to use.”
Besides being a location for academic resources, the CRC offers a computer lab which Crawford said she enjoys using.
“I wish students took greater advantage of it — not just for its resources — but also there’s a computer lab in it where I’ve met with groups for projects,” Crawford said. “It’s a really good place to meet up and collaborate on things, which I think is a really cool aspect of it.”
Crawford said employees at the CRC have been helpful in finding materials.
“Everyone there is super nice because I did not really know where anything was at. They were able to kind of show me around,” Crawford said.
Emmy Vero, a senior integrated language arts education major, said she has also borrowed material from the CRC.
“I borrowed a textbook to use for my eighth graders in my field work,” Vero said. “I pulled resources from this textbook lesson plan for my class.”
The CRC is open Monday through Thursday from 8:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. For more information, visit the CRC page on Maag Library’s website.