Library Services for New Students

Course Reserves 

Course reserves are online and physical materials (textbooks, DVDs, and CDs) required for your courses that the Library makes available to you for FREE. Find course reserves using your course Moodle page for online material or the Reserves Search Box at amherst.edu/library for physical material. You can check out physical materials for short-term loans only. 

Research Education & Support 

Research and Instruction Librarians can help you get started with a research project, find books and articles, or organize and cite your sources. They've also made online guides that point to the most useful databases in every major and for specific topics: libguides.amherst.edu/rguides

Access to Collections

You can borrow materials from Amherst College and request delivery from any of the Five Colleges. Use our Request Service to get material from beyond the local community. We also welcome requests to purchase items and add them to the Library collection in support of student research and learning. 

Archives and Special Collections (amherst.edu/library/archives) houses Amherst's rare books, literary manuscripts, and materials that document the college and its history. 

Our Digital Programs department provides access to a growing set of digitized archival collections at acdc.amherst.edu. They also support digital preservation, open access, and digital humanities projects. 

The Writing Center

Writing is a cornerstone of a liberal arts education. By developing the skills and habits of mind that enable effective communication, students prepare to engage meaningfully with the world. The Writing Center empowers students to develop their own processes and voices as writers, speakers, readers, and learners.

The Moss Quantitative Center

The Moss Quantitative Center ("Q Center") is located in rooms D109, D107, and D111 in the joint Q Center/Science Library space in the science center.  We are here to assist students in quantitative fields.  Our hope is that students will grow to appreciate the importance of quantitative analysis and learn to apply it to the questions that interest them most.  We also aim to support faculty who teach quantitative courses or who want to integrate quantitative analysis into their teaching and research.

  • Learn more about the Q Center here. 
  • Connect with Q Center staff for an appointment here. 

Summer Science Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) Program

The SURF Program is an 8-week program held on-campus every summer (typically starting in early June). SURF's mission is to provide students with their first immersive research experience. Students in the SURF program work closely with a STEM faculty mentor on a research project which culminates in a poster presentation during the start of the Fall Session.

  • Learn more about the SURF program here. 
  • Reach out to SURF Program Administrative Director: Jess Martin, jemartin@amherst.edu to see if this is the right opportunity for you! 

STEM Incubator Research Program

The STEM Incubator is a new cohort program designed to support and train students who are underrepresented in STEM disciplines, including Black, Latinx, Indigenous, first-generation and low-income students. The program introduces students to current research topics in chemistry, biology and statistics; teaches and develops fundamental research skills; builds relationships between students and the campus community; and enables students to be creative in their problem-solving.