Questions for those who do research papers and use website links?

1. Can you website link to google books or do you need to link to the book?

2. If the link has a really long URL can you put the URL in a shortening service link like Tinyurl

3. Does your school require you to say when you accessed the information?

I’m asking these questions because I am an ESL teacher required to give my students a research paper, and since I live in a small town in China I need my students to access English info primarily through the internet. TIA