Research Library Resources

Northwestern’s extensive library system on the Evanston and Chicago campuses provides resources and support for scholars engaged in research. Northwestern’s combined library collections rank among the top 35 in the nation. The online catalog is accessible from campus computers or off campus with VPN access.

General Introduction to the Library’s Resources

For a general introduction to Northwestern University’s library resources, please visit their page for graduate students. Topics in this library guide include:

• Books at NU Libraries
• Borrowing Materials
• Books Not at NU Libraries
• Articles
• Computing and Printing
• Copying and Scanning

Several helpful video tutorials about the library’s research resources are available here.

There are a number of ways to search for materials (physical and electronic) that NU owns. The two most frequently used search tools are NuCAT and the “find materials” search bar.

We also encourage new students to take a library tour.

For a more extensive list of topics, see  the Library Guide Overview.

Library Subject Guides

To find articles, books, and other reference materials for your MSHE research papers and other projects, please visit the SESP page on their website. NU librarians have created library guides for subjects that are commonly researched by students to help them navigate the NU library system and find sources as quickly as possible. The following are the most commonly used subject guides by MSHE students.

• For education-related topics
• For social policy-related topics
• For psychology-related topics
• For U.S. federal government-related topics
• For political science-related topics

Note that library guides have multiple tabs addressing different resources. The key resources on these guides are the databases. Each guide will direct you to the relevant databases that you should be using to find sources. For example, the Education Library Guide provides links to ERIC (Education Resource Information Center), Education Abstracts, and Education Administration Abstracts. These three databases will help you find articles related to education topics such as access, affordability, diversity, retention, financial aid, etc.

Introduction to Research in Education

The ERIC (Education Resource Information Center) database is probably the single best starting point for research in education. ERIC is a huge bibliographic database that lists virtually everything published related to education. This is the place to go to search for sources related to a topic you want to research for a paper or your Master’s Project. You may or may not be able to access the actual source through ERIC if it is not public (e.g. a book or subscription-only journal), but this will help you find what’s out there and then you can actually access it through the NU Library using the methods below.

The Education Abstracts is also good bibliographic indexes. A “Find it at NU” button will often appear on the left-hand side when conducting a search in ERIC, Education Abstracts, or Education Administration Abstracts and the full-text articles are not available in the database you are using. Click on the icon, and it will lead you to the articles if NU subscribes to the publication. If NU does not have a subscription, you can request the article via Interlibrary Loan. If you find the citation for an article and need to access the full text, start by searching for the journal title in NUcat as described below. This will tell you if the NU library has that journal electronically or in print. If NU does not have a subscription to that journal, you can request the article via Interlibrary Loan.

Many new students will be more familiar with sources such as JSTOR, ProjectMuse, and PsycINFO. These can also be great for introductory research, although they are not specifically focused on education and are not as comprehensive on education-related sources as ERIC, and JSTOR in particular tends to lag a couple years’ behind on newly published articles. The advantage to these databases, though, is that they will normally have the full-text of articles available immediately. PsycINFO will be particularly useful to those interested in college student development theory.

Another search option is to search multiple EbscoHost datebases at once. To do so, you will need to log onto an EbscoHost database (e.g., ERIC, Education Abstracts, Education Administration Abstracts, PsycINFO). Above the search bar, click on “Choose Databases” and select the databases you would like to include in your search.

Once you begin to focus in on a research topic, you will likely want to start conducting more focused research. This is especially necessary for larger projects like the Master’s Project literature review. Once you have found a few sources or key researchers that are really useful to you through the general research methods discussed above or through advice from an instructor or expert, you can begin to work outward from these sources. Who do they cite in their literature reviews, footnotes, and bibliographies? Track down some of those sources that look useful. You can also try using Google Scholar to find the sources you like and see who has cited them more recently, and then track down some of those sources. Eventually, you’ll begin to find that certain sources or researchers come up often, and that the same handful of people keep citing each other. Once you find that you recognize many or most of the names cited, you have probably managed to get a good sense of the “field” or “scholarly conversation” that you are trying to frame your own work within.

Interlibrary Loan

If an article or book is not available through Northwestern, you can submit an Interlibrary Loan request at no cost. Northwestern is part of a network of college libraries, where students from any institution within the network can borrow books and other resources from other institutions in the network. Try searching Uborrow first—this is an ILL network consisting of nearby schools, so if you can locate a book here, it will arrive more quickly.

If you feel strongly that NU could benefit from owning a book, you could submit a purchase suggestion. Please note that it could take several months for the book to arrive at the library depending on the book distributor.

Searching NUcat

The library’s catalog search tool is called NUcat. Past MSHE students have found it to be difficult, which is why we recommend using the subject guides. The primary challenges with NUcat is that it works best if you know exactly what you are looking for and is best used for book searches. If you are trying to do general research or look for sources in a broad area like a keyword search, start with the subject guides. But if you are looking for a specific book, journal, or author, NUcat may be the most direct way to find it. It is a little finicky—for example, do not include introductory articles (the, an) at the beginning of a book title. If you need a specific book, type its exact title, and if it doesn’t come up, try searching by the author’s last name and scanning through all of the library’s holdings by that author. If that doesn’t work, NU does not have it, and you should try Uborrow to request it from elsewhere.

Library Books: Requests, Recalls, and Renewals

Once you have found the book you want, one option would be to write down the call number, hike to the library, and try to track it down amongst the rolling bookcases in the basement. If you don’t care to do that, however, the NU Library offers a great service that you can use to request that a library worker retrieve the book from the shelves and leave it at the main circulation desk for you. You can do this by clicking the “Request” tab from the NUcat record of the item you want. You then have to login with your WildCard barcode and your last name, and you can request that the book be delivered to the main circulation desk for you. It takes a day or two, and you’ll get an email when it’s ready. You can also use this process to request items to be delivered to another NU Library location; for example, you can request that items from the Law Library downtown be delivered to you at the Evanston library or, if you live/work downtown, you could do the reverse.

The process is the same for recalling a book that is already checked out by another patron—just select “Recall” instead of “Request.” However, the library advises that requesting a book from another library using Uborrow is often faster than recalling an NU book.

Research Assistance

Students are encouraged to take advantage of the library’s research consultation services, including the instant “chat with a librarian” service and one-on-one research appointments with a librarian.

Appointments with the Librarian

It is often beneficial to meet one on one with a librarian if you aren’t finding the kind of information you need. There are different librarians for different academic subjects/disciplines, but depending on what you’re studying it might not be clear which librarian you should meet with. That’s okay! You don’t have to know WHICH librarian you want – you just use this form.

The specialist librarian for education is Li (Qunying) Li, and you can contact her directly for assistance or to suggest that she purchase specific materials at qunying-li@northwestern.edu. If you cannot go to the library in-person, Li is able to meet with you virtually using AdobeConnect. You can also get more general, real-time help (for example with navigating NUcat or making an ILL request) by calling or instant messaging the library.

Meeting with Li can be beneficial if your independent searches have not been fruitful or if you just need some one-on-one guidance. She can walk you through the different search engines and also help you find search terms you may not have considered. The more specific you are in your e-mail about your research topic, the more prepared she will be to help you.

Technology and Resources Available at Library

The Main Library has various items that you can check out for short-term use, such as iPads and umbrellas. The computers in the library are equipped with lots of expensive software that you may want to use, such as SPSS or the full Adobe suite. For students with Macs, you may use the PCs at the library if you need to use Microsoft Access. Also, for when you need a study break after all that research, the Mitchell Multimedia Center has an extensive and up-to-date collection of DVD’s—grad students can check out up to ten items at once for a two week loan period.

Using Google Scholar

Google Scholar is actually a good tool, especially for key word searches. One strategy that many students have found useful is doing key word searches in Google Scholar and then, once you’ve identified the articles that you’d like to read, searching for the full text of that article within the NU library’s databases.

Pro tip: If you log in to the NU library system before going to Google Scholar, you’ll see the “find it at NU” link on the right hand side of your search results in Google Scholar, which saves you several steps. In order to get to a place where you have to “log in” (enter your netID and password) through the library system the easiest thing to do is to go straight to ERIC, which will then ask you to log in. Then just minimize that tab and log in to Google Scholar.

Managing Citations and Staying Organized

EndNote, Zotero, and Other Citation Software

EndNote and Zotero are software programs designed to store bibliographic information for in-text citations and reference lists. These are free to Northwestern students. There are a couple of video tutorials on using EndNote for your reference, and they also host trainings on both EndNote and Zotero several times a year.

Google Scholar Citations

Another way to manage your citations is to search for the article on Google Scholar and then click “cite.” You’ll get a window that gives you an MLA and APA style citation that you can just copy and paste into your lit review AND some options to upload the citation into a few different citation software programs, including Endnote.