Build Your Research Skills Online
- ‘Research Basics’ TutorialThis online tutorial — a series of videos and quick quizzes — gives you the tools you need to begin searching for scholarly sources.
From ‘The Place to Start’
You will also find this information in the Place to Start research guide.
You can find many different types of sources here at the library:
- Books
- Articles from scholarly journals
- Articles from newspapers
- Websites, including statistics and government reports
- Videos
- Audio files
Are you a smart searcher?
- See the Effective Searching tutorial.
Is that website a good source?
- See the Establishing Credibility tutorial.
No full text? Click the 
button by the article to get it elsewhere, or to order it.
- Academic Search Ultimate This link opens in a new window
A multi-disciplinary database containing full-text for thousands of journals in nearly every subject area, including: computer science, engineering, physics, chemistry, language and linguistics, arts and literature, medical sciences, ethnic studies, and many more.
- Credo Reference This link opens in a new windowSimilar to Wikipedia, but actually written by experts, this collection of more than 400 reference books will help you learn general information about your topic from quality information sources. Includes thousands of topic pages and images. Mind maps illustrate relationships between topics.
- US Newsstream This link opens in a new windowProminent U.S. papers like the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal. It's also a good place to look for Star Tribune articles, with archives from 1986. Use the advanced search tab to limit to particular titles or dates.
- Films on Demand This link opens in a new window
Thousands of educational and documentary videos from authoritative sources. Create playlists and clips and embed these in your Moodle site or share with a group.
Includes films from Films for the Humanities & Sciences, Cambridge Educational, Meridian Education, and Films Media Group. - Kanopy This link opens in a new windowA video database for classroom viewing and research projects. Stream thousands of documentaries, classic and independent films. Create clips and playlists, and view transcripts.
Check out our FAQ for questions about public performance rights.