Graduate Nursing and DNP Students' Guide to McKillop Library: Find Articles & Books

McKillop Library's Best Bets for Nursing Research

Wondering if McKillop Library subscribes to a specific journal? While keyword and subject searching in a database yields more results, sometimes you may want to use a specific journal. The most efficient way to do this is using our Journal Titles search tool.

If the library subscribes to the journal you searched for, a listing will display the years of coverage and available database(s) that offer full-text access. If the library has access to this journal in more than one database, each will be listed separately. Pay attention to the dates of coverage, as they may vary by database. See example below:

If you click on the link for Journal of Nursing Scholarship, you will see a listing of all the available online issues of this journal, which you can then browse to find the issue or specific article you want. If you are off-campus, you will be asked to enter your login information before you are allowed to access any electronic journal.

Google Scholar as a Tool for Journal Articles

Google Scholar crawls academic journal websites and provides an index of selected scholarly articles. 

Tip: Be sure to set up your "Library Links" to Salve Regina so that if you locate a citation and the full-text is available from one of the library's subscription databases, you can link directly from the Google Scholar search page.

Tip: If it's not available full-text, you'll be directed to request the article through Salve's interlibrary loan service.

Tip: Much of your research in Nursing will call for the use of recently published articles. At times, you'll find a useful source but it is older than what you are typically able to cite in your research. Look at the citation in Google Scholar and click on “Cited by.” This tool allows you to move forward in time from the older source to see who has cited it in more recent publications. Of course, you will also need to evaluate those newer studies for relevance and quality!

For more tips and tricks on using Google Scholar, use this link: https://scholar.google.com/intl/en/scholar/help.html

To find dissertations written by Salve Regina students, do a keyword search in the library catalog for Salve Regina University thesis. Copies of dissertations located in the Salve Main Collection can be found by their call number on the second and third floor of the library.

Some Salve dissertations are also available online in our digital repository Digital Commons. Additional copies of Salve dissertations are also kept in Special Collections, which is located in the garden level of McKillop Library and requires an appointment for access.

There are several sources for finding dissertations written by students at other schools. If you are looking for a particular dissertation by title or author, you can search by title or author in the library catalog to see if a copy is available at McKillop Library. If not, try a search in Google to see if the dissertation is available in full-text online. If not, you can use interlibrary loan to request it.

If you are searching for dissertations by topic, these are other sources to search:

• PQDTOpen

• Dissertations and Theses A & I from Proquest - McKillop Library subscribes to this service, enabling you access to the full text of dissertations and theses from around the world.

UpToDate is provided to students in the Salve Nursing program by the Nursing department. However, your access is enabled via the McKillop Library portal, only.

Begin on the library homepage at https://library.salve.edu, and then navigate to the blue button that says Databases A-Z. From there, locate UpToDate in the alphabetical list and open the database.

Unlike many library databases, UpToDate requires users to create a personal account. Click on the register button, then create an account. Please note: You will be asked to revalidate your personal UpToDate account every 90 days by accessing it directly from the UpToDate link via the library webpage.

Under the Help menu in the database, UpToDate provides basic tutorials and videos to navigate the database, but also, feel free to contact library staff for assistance!