Nursing Research Guide

Print and e-books are valuable sources for academic research. They will help you to gain an overview of your topic and often contain in-depth information about the scholarship or history of research on a subject. Some books are written by single authors, while others include essays or chapters by multiple scholars within a discipline. Don’t let the length of books intimidate you because you don’t need to read them from cover to cover. Look at the table of contents and index to find the sections that are relevant to your work.

Find Books Using GriffinSearch

GriffinSearch is a good starting place if you are looking for books, journal articles, films, and other materials available in the library. In addition to searching the Giovale Library catalog for physical materials, GriffinSearch finds e-books and articles from several of our databases. To get started, search by keyword or type in the title of a book here:

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WorldCat

WorldCat lets you search for books, articles, videos, and other material that are available in libraries worldwide. If you are doing in-depth research on a topic and are considering requesting resources through Interlibrary Loan, WorldCat can help you discover resources that might not be in the Giovale Library collection.

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Interlibrary Loan (ILL)

Interlibrary Loan is a service where patrons of one library can borrow books and other materials, and access journal articles that are owned by another library.

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Utah Academic Library Consortium

Giovale Library participates in the Utah Academic Library Consortium (UALC) and Westminster University students have reciprocal circulation privileges at UALC partner libraries. Each UALC library has different circulation policies, but all require a current, valid, legal photo identification and proof of current enrollment at Westminster. Some libraries may also require other verification methods, so it is recommended that you contact the library you are interested in for details.

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Popular Titles and Featured Texts

Browse the Print Collection

The Giovale Library uses the Library of Congress Classification system, which divides collections into 21 basic classes using single letters of the alphabet. These classes also hold subclasses which allows the library to implement more specific classes to make it easier for patrons to find materials. Medicine books can be found under the broad classification R. However, medicine is fairly broad so to narrow the collection to specifically nursing materials, we use the sub-classification RT. These books can be found on the north end of the top floor of the library.

The Giovale Library provides access to a number of subject databases that you can use to find journal articles on topics within a specific discipline or field of study. The databases listed on this page are the most useful for finding research published in nursing.

CINAHL – Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature (EBSCO)

Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature (CINAHL) provides full text for the top nursing and allied health literature available and covers a wide range of topics including nursing, biomedicine, health sciences librarianship, alternative/complementary medicine, consumer health, and allied health disciplines. This full-text resource features publications from the National League for Nursing and the American Nurses Association. In addition, it provides access to health care books, nursing dissertations, selected conference proceedings, standards of practice, audiovisuals, book chapters, and more.

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MEDLINE (EBSCO)

MEDLINE provides authoritative medical information on medicine, nursing, dentistry, veterinary medicine, the health care system, pre-clinical sciences, and much more. Created by the National Library of Medicine, MEDLINE uses (MeSH) indexing with tree numbers, tree hierarchy, and explosion capabilities to search abstracts from current biomedical journals. Included are citations from Index Medicus, the International Nursing Index, Index to Dental Literature, PREMEDLINE, AIDSLINE, BIOETHICSLINE, and HealthSTAR.

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PubMed

PubMed is the freely accessible version of MEDLINE and is the NLM's premier bibliographic database covering the fields of medicine, nursing, dentistry, veterinary medicine, the health care system, and the preclinical sciences. MEDLINE contains bibliographic citations and author abstracts from biomedical journals published in the United States and 70 other countries. Coverage is worldwide, but most records are from English-language sources or have English abstracts.

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Cochrane Library (Wiley)

The Cochrane Library is a collection of databases that contain high-quality, independent evidence to inform healthcare decision-making. It includes the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews (CDSR), the Database of Abstracts of Reviews of Effects (DARE), the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (CENTRAL), the Cochrane Database of Methodology Reviews (CDMR), the NHS Economic Evaluation Database (NHS EED), the Health Technology Assessment Database (HTA), and the Cochrane Methodology Register (CMR).

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Science Direct (Elsevier)

ScienceDirect is a leading full-text scientific database offering journal articles and book chapters. Journals are guided by eminent editorial boards and articles are rigorously peer-reviewed. Books on ScienceDirect cover 24 subject collections across disciplines such as biochemistry, genetics and molecular biology, chemistry, clinical medicine, engineering, and environmental science.

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Health Source: Nursing/Academic Edition (EBSCO)

Health Source: Nursing/Academic Edition provides researchers, allied health professionals, nurses and medical educators with access to full-text scholarly journals focusing on many medical disciplines. It provides indexing, abstracts, and full-text for hundreds of nursing and allied health journals, many of which are peer-reviewed.

Search Health Source: Nursing/Academic Edition (EBSCO)

GriffinSearch

GriffinSearch is a good starting place if you are looking for books, journal articles, films, and other material available in the library. In addition to searching the Giovale Library catalog for physical materials, GriffinSearch finds e-books and articles from several of our databases.

Search GriffinSearch

These sources help nursing students find resources for career and professional certificate help.

LearningExpress Library

LearningExpress Library offers free workplace resources such as preparatory licensing exams for the NCLEX-PN and the NCLEX-RN. Register for a free account using your Westminster University email as your username.

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Vocational and Career Center (EBSCO)

Provides full-text coverage of trade and industry periodicals in professional fields such as management, nursing, advertising, and information technology along with many others.

Search Vocational and Career Center (EBSCO)

Citation Resources

Properly citing your sources shows that you’ve done research to become knowledgeable about your topic and helps you avoid plagiarism. Explore citation resources to learn how to correctly cite sources based on style.