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Library contact information, Research help, and PAWS - let Musselman Library help you!

What is PAWS?

A 30-minute PAWS appointment with a librarian is available to Bluffton students, faculty, and staff.  We can:

  • Provide research assistance and guidance.
  • Suggest specific databases for you to try.
  • Offer help with search terms (words and phrases) that can get better results.
  • Help devise search strategies and provide search tips.
  • Suggest sources from other libraries (OhioLINK, SearchOHIO, and other libraries outside Ohio).

Click here to make a PAWS appointment. We'll confirm a meeting time and location with you.

Referring Students to PAWS

Faculty might refer their students to PAWS for a number of reasons:

  • Getting started with finding resources for a project or paper.
  • Choosing subject-specific databases.
  • Using good search terms.
  • Finding scholarly sources.
  • Finding primary sources.
  • Help with finding and accessing sources from other libraries.

Faculty interested in requiring PAWS for each student in a class are asked to make advance arrangements with the library.   In some circumstances, an instruction session for the class may be more suited. 

Note: for help with the writing process, students can visit the Writing Center. The center is staffed by Bluffton students majoring in education or English. Visit the Writing Center website for more information.

For Faculty and Staff

PAWS isn't just for students. Faculty and staff can make appointments as well. If you want to meet with a librarian, we'd be happy to accommodate you. You might want to make an appointment for any of the following reasons:

  • Review of databases in your field.
  • An overview of resources that the library has available. Things are always changing, and it can be hard to keep up.
  • How to find books - this might seem simple, but there are multiple catalogs you can search, and different formats to consider. After you find the book, how do you borrow it, or access it?
  • How to find articles - there are various places to look. Is the fulltext available in a database, or online? If it isn't, how do you place an interlibrary loan request?
  • You don't have to be doing academic research to use the library. We're here for everybody on campus.