Research Tools and Guides: Libraries - Northwestern University

Research Tools and Guides

Use online tools at the Libraries to further your research.

Familiarize yourself with online tools for conducting research.

Find a specific item or source, such as a database or journal.

NUsearch searches our collection for books, journals, images, articles and multimedia. Items can be placed on hold or requested via NUsearch.
Databases A-Z lists all Northwestern Libraries databases. Search the list or filter it by database subject, type or vendor.
Journals A-Z lists all Northwestern Libraries journals. The list of journals is searchable.
Search other libraries to find items not in the Northwestern collection. Items may be requested via interlibrary loan and delivered to Northwestern.
Consensus (beta) is an academic search engine that uses artificial intelligence to surface relevant research findings to students' questions.
Geographic Information System Resources offers software, online tools and more.
Social Science Data Resources has comprehensive sorted lists of statistics and data resources by subject.
Northwestern Libraries Search Assistant is a browser add-on to search Northwestern’s Collections, Google Scholar, and other libraries from anywhere on the web. Now available to as an extension to Google Chrome or as an extension to Mozilla Firefox.

Research Guides are prepared by our subject librarians across disciplines and can include recommended search engines, publications and course information.
How To Guides instruct patrons on how to use library tools and resources.
Reference Materials is a compilation of links to online reference materials -- including encyclopedias, database and more -- as well as information about print reference materials at the library.
Video Tutorials provide quick tips on generating keywords, finding materials, using interlibrary loan and more.