Resources for PaGE Research Fellows

Welcome to Mount Holyoke and LITS!

Key Research Databases and Library Services:

Accessing Mount Holyoke research databases from off-campus

• If you are not on the Mount Holyoke College network (for instance, if you are off-campus) many of the databases that LITS subscribes to will require that you log in before giving you access. These databases include the ERIC, PsychInfo and Academic Search Premier databases among many others. When you click on one of these databases, the Mount Holyoke log-in page will appear (seen below) and you will need to log-in using your Mount Holyoke username and password.

• Educator's Reference Desk
• Literacy Web
• Massachusetts Department of Education
• National Center for Education Statistics
• UNESCO Education Information Service

Scholarly databases like Academic Search Premier, ERIC or PsychInfo offer advanced search options. If you're having trouble coming up with good search results, click on the advanced search link to limit your search by certain types of results, search specific fields, find only full text, and more.

Some additional advanced tips:

Try truncation.
In many databases, you can use the asterisk symbol (*) within or after a word to tell the database to fill in any letter or combination of letters. For example, typing 'wom*n' would return results with both 'women' and 'woman'. Typing 'philosoph*' would return results that include the words 'philosophy', 'philosopher', 'philosophize', as well as the plurals of all of those words. (Note: not all databases offer this feature, but it's worth checking!)

Use AND, OR, and NOT.
Combine search terms by using one (or more) of these connectors. Using 'AND' will show results that include both of your search terms; 'OR' will show results that contain either of your search terms; and 'NOT' will show results that include one but not the other.

Try nesting searches.
You can use parentheses to refine your search. This tells the database to search within the parentheses first, then combine with other search terms.

For example, ("nuclear power" OR "nuclear energy") AND ("public opinion" OR attitudes)

Search within specific fields.
Using advanced search options, you can limit your search to only a specific field, such as title, author, subject terms, or abstract.

Make use of subject headings.
Research databases have pre-defined subject headings associated with every article or resource. If you find a source that seems particularly useful, look at the search terms in the item record to construct a search for similar resources.