Resources for Thesis Students

LITS Research Services librarians are here to support you!  We can help through all the stages of your thesis: brainstorming your topic, finding sources, organizing your references, citing, and finally submitting your completed thesis to the MHC thesis repository.  Talk to us as early and as often as you like!  Email us at researchservices-g@mtholyoke.edu or

Advanced Research - Tips from MHC's librarians for taking your research to a higher level. Learn about setting up alerts, backward citations, the Deep Web, and more.

At Mount Holyoke

The LITS homepage's Research menu is the quickest way to access tools for finding information in the Mount Holyoke library collections and beyond. Some highlights from the Research menu:

• Discover advanced search - use to search the Five College Libraries catalog and most of the MHC library's subscription databases all at once
• Databases A-Z - an alphabetical list of links to all of the library's databases
• Library research guides - curated by MHC's librarians, there's a research guide for every subject taught at MHC that will point you to subject-specific information sources

Finding and requesting materials from libraries outside the Five Colleges

You can search for and request library materials from beyond the Five Colleges by using a combination of WorldCat and interlibrary loan.  WorldCat is a catalog of the combined holdings of academic and research libraries across the United States and abroad. If you find something you're interested in borrowing in WorldCat, use the MHC: Get It! link to get to a screen where you can choose to "Request from another library."  Keep in mind that physical items are delivered via the mail and that can take a week or even longer so you'll want to plan ahead.

Visiting other libraries

Sometimes your thesis research may lead you to materials at libraries outside of the Five Colleges. Here are resources for travel funding and getting a letter of introduction so you'll be allowed access to other institutions' collections:

If your thesis work includes conducting research that involves human subjects, you will need to apply to the Mount Holyoke Institutional Review Board (IRB) for approval of the research.  For more information see: