Research Guides

What a research guide is

A research guide is a shortcut written by a subject librarian. Halvorsen Library licenses more than 180 databases, and a general web search will not tell you which three of them matter for a packaging shelf-life study or a nursing evidence summary. Each guide below does: where to start, which databases and indexes to search, the call-number ranges to browse on the shelves, the specialized sources (standards, patents, datasets, archives) that belong to that field, and how to cite them.

Every guide is reviewed each August, before fall classes start, and links are checked monthly. If you find a dead link or a database that has been renamed again, tell the librarian listed on the guide; they would rather hear it from you than from a class of thirty.

The guides assume the basics in Using the library for real research: turn the topic into a question, search databases instead of the open web, mine the reference list of one good source, and keep track as you go.

Guides by college

Each of Porter’s colleges has one subject librarian, who writes and maintains that college’s guides and teaches its library instruction sessions. Two guides cross college lines on purpose: standards and patents (used by engineering, packaging, design and safety students alike) and local history (used by anyone with a question about Porter Falls).

If your subject is not listed

Twelve guides do not cover fifty programs one-to-one, and they are not meant to. Your college’s librarian covers every program in the college, guide or no guide. A few common crossovers:

• Dietetics students: start with the nursing and health sciences guide, then the hospitality and food science guide for food composition data.
• Supply chain, marketing and accounting students: the business and economics guide covers all three.
• Construction management, plastics and manufacturing students: the engineering guide, plus standards and patents.
• Social work and rehabilitation students: the psychology and counseling guide.
• Apparel and textile design students: the art and design guide, which points to the Millrace Woolen Mill fabric sample books in Special Collections.

Guides for mathematics and statistics and for communication and media are being written now and are due in spring 2027. Until then, ask Henrik Dalby or Noemi Castellano.

Booking a consultation

A research consultation is a free one-on-one meeting with the librarian for your subject. Subject librarians held about 1,150 of them in 2025–26, most in the three weeks before capstone proposals were due.

1. Sign in to MyPorter and choose Library › Book a librarian.
2. Pick your subject. The calendar shows that librarian’s open times for the next three weeks.
3. Choose 30 minutes (one assignment, one question) or 60 minutes (a literature review, a thesis chapter, a senior design project).
4. Choose in person (subject librarian offices, Level 2, rooms 244–258) or online.
5. Attach the assignment sheet. A librarian who has read it before you arrive will have the databases open when you sit down.

Groups of up to six can book together. Faculty who want a librarian to teach a class session on a guide’s sources should request it at least two weeks ahead through Research & Outreach Services; librarians taught 214 such sessions last year.

Other help in the building

• Research help desk, Level 1, for quick questions without an appointment. Chat runs the same hours from the library home page.
• Citations. Setup and troubleshooting for reference managers is on citation manager help; the Writing Center helps with how sources are used in the paper itself.
• Things Porter does not own. Interlibrary loan brings in articles, often the same day, and books in about a week. Many sources are also free: see open resources.
• Rare and archival material. The Special Collections reading room on Level 4 is open to anyone by appointment.
• Required readings. Course reserves holds them at the Level 1 desk.

Research & Outreach Services is led by Marta Kowalczyk, head of research and outreach services, who also fields complaints about the guides. She reports that the most common one is “I didn’t know this existed.”