Research

See our How To Do Company Research.

Click on the Citing Sources section under Doing Research above to find a link to APA and MLA guidelines. If you need to cite a source that is not mentioned there, the complete style guide for each (and Turabian/Chicago) is available on the Reference shelves.

Group study rooms are available on a first-come-first-served basis. You can reserve a group study room online using 25Live (an app on your Nichols OneLogin page or the Library’s homepage) or by seeing staff at the Circulation Desk. How to reserve a library group study room in 25Live.

Please renew item(s) before the due date. You can check and renew online in WorldCat Discovery by clicking on the “My library account” link on the library’s homepage. If your item is overdue and you wish to renew it, please see or contact: Carrie Grimshaw, Library Director

If you find a book or an article using WorldCat Discovery that we do not own or have access to, we can get it for you. Simply click on the title, then the ‘Request Item from Other Libraries’ button and add your name and contact information.

If you want an item that was not found through WorldCat Discovery, please complete our Interlibrary Loan Request Form once you have the following citation information:

• For books: Author(s), Title, Date of Publication, (edition if known).
• For articles: Author(s), article title, journal title, volume, publication date, issue (if known), pages.

You will be notified by e-mail when the item is ready for pick-up, or, in the case of articles, it may be sent to you as an attachment to your Nichols e-mail.

The Library has all textbooks for undergraduate day courses that cost over $40.00. To see if a particular textbook is on reserve you can click on the Reserves tab above the search box on the Library homepage. [Click on this link for an instructional guide to searching the reserves collection via our catalog: WMS Discovery Course Reserves.pdf]

Using your laptop or other wireless/mobile device (or your residence hall PC as well), you can now print Microsoft Office documents and pdf files to any Library printer 24/7 using your PaperCut account. (Note: We are currently unable to print color using PaperCut remotely; you may print in color from a library computer, not a personal device). From the Library’s homepage click on the PaperCut button and then click on Web Print link. For detailed instructions please see the guide Wireless Printing With Papercut.

Log into your Nichols Onelogin page, click on PaperCut link, then click on “Summary.”

Log into your Nichols Onelogin page and click on the PaperCut link. Click on the ‘Transfers’ link on the left, fill in amount you wish to transfer and enter the user name (first initial middle initial last name) for the account to which you want to transfer the credit.

You can search our eBook collection two ways: Type in your keyword search using the online catalog (in the case of our eBooks, our online catalog only searches the surface of each eBook, usually matching keywords in titles and/or Authors only) OR, for a much more thorough search, click on the ‘EBook’ tab above the search box on the Library’s homepage. Using this eBook search link will enable you to sort/limit your results by subject to speed up your browsing!

Click on the title of the eBook to view the ‘book details’ page. Click on “PDF Full Text” on the left side of the page.

To download a chapter:

• Scroll through the left side of the page, and click the download symbol next to the chapter you wish to download
• Select “Chapter….” (usually last option), and click “Download PDF”

To download the whole eBook:

• Click on “Full Download” (upper right corner)
• Click on “Sign In / Create Account”
• Click on “Sign up” and fill in the information requested
• Once signed in, choose download duration (up to 7 days) and click “Full Download” (you will need Adobe Digital Editions, a free application, to read the PDF of the full eBook)

The computers in the Library are set to delete any changes or items saved to the computer upon logging off. To save a document for retrieval later, it must be saved/uploaded to your OneDrive account or to a flash drive.

To link to Conant Library article access (when available):

1. Go to scholar.google.com
2. Click on the three horizontal lines at the top left and click the gear icon for settings
3. Click on the Library Links link
4. Search for Nichols College and click search (You should see Nichols College appear below)
5. Place a check mark in the box and click the SAVE button on bottom right.

Note: If signed into Google, it will remember this setting.

If the school is closed due to inclement weather then the Library will also be closed.

If you study, work, or live in Massachusetts you can obtain a free Boston Public Library ecard at https://bpl.org/ecard

After you obtain your library card, from the top menu click on ‘Books & More’, then under Learning and Research click on Online Resources.

Note: When you first sign up or renew you may experience difficulties if using a computer/device out of state. Once you have your e-card, you should have no difficulty with access from anywhere.

Call Number = a way to identify the location of a book in the shelves. Our Call Numbers begin with one or more letters followed by numbers. An example would be GV 761 .M34 2010. Books that begin with letters A – L can be found on the top floor; REF on the Main floor; M-Z on the lower floor; and popular fiction will be in the Lobby area. To find a book with the call # GV 761 .M34 2010 you would first find where the GV section is (top floor) and then look for the 761s and if there are more than one 761 look for those that begin with .M (Note: the third part, .M34 are treated as decimals, so .M234 would be before .M38 on a shelf.)

Interlibrary Loan = The means by which the Library staff obtains material that you want but we don’t have; we identify and then make requests to libraries that own the article/book/video etc. For more info see ‘How do I…Borrow items from other libraries?’ above.

Reference = Research assistance. There are also books and other resources known as ‘Reference’ materials. These are generally in the Reference stacks opposite the group study rooms on the Main floor and their Call # starts with REF.

Refereed/Peer Reviewed/Scholarly Article = Refereed (also known as peer-reviewed) materials are publications reviewed by “expert readers” or referees prior to the publication of the material. After reading and evaluating the material, the referee informs the publisher if the document should be published or if any changes should be made prior to publication. Refereed materials are significant to the research and the literature of most academic fields because they assure readers that the information conveyed is reliable and timely. Non-refereed materials such as trade journals or magazines use less rigorous standards of screening prior to publication. In some publications, each article may be only screened by the publication’s editor.

Scholarly articles report on research or analytical studies undertaken in a scholarly environment. Some characteristics of scholarly articles are:

• Often peer-reviewed/refereed
• Often start with an abstract
• Rigorously cite sources in the form of footnotes or bibliographies
• The author of the article is normally a researcher or scholar whose credentials or affiliated institution are listed at the beginning or end of the article
• Language used is specialized and often assumes some scholarly background on the part of the reader
• Scholarly articles about research will describe the research methodology (i.e. how the research was conducted)

If you are not sure whether a specific article is scholarly, peer-reviewed or refereed check with your instructor or a librarian.

Reserves = material instructors make available for their specific class(es) in the Library. Accessible either online (and available via the Library’s online catalog; see the ‘Reserve’ link on the Library’s homepage) or in hard copy at the front Circulation Desk.