Library Research Services:
Psychology Ph.D.s

The address for this guide page is: URL: http://www.library.okstate.edu/hss/chaney/class/psycphds.htm

This page should provide psychology doctoral students with some links to information, databases, and other relevant OSU Library information regarding research methods and resources in the social sciences.

Before engaging in the research process, you may want to review the Finding Information tutorial on the OSU Library's Information Literacy web site. It will lead you through defining your topic, identifying and locating books and journal articles, evaluating their appropriateness, and citing them. It also discusses doing library research in a very broad context, including such topics as the steps to searching an electronic database, refining a search, etc.

I have placed some links and information here to hopefully make your lives as student researchers somewhat easier.

Electronic Databases and Indexes

OSU Library Database List: This is the OSU Library's comprehensive listing of databases, in A-Z order. There is also a subject database listing if you'd like to see more choices by discipline. Below, I've highlighted several electronic databases you may wish to consult in your research.

• Digital Dissertations (Dissertation Abstracts International): Index to U.S. dissertations (some masters theses included). Updated semiannually. Coverage 1861 - present. Abstracts available starting July 1980. For abstracts before July 1980, use Dissertation Abstracts International (Call Number: 016.3781 D 613). Access to OSU dissertations in PDF format from 1961 - present. Dissertations from other universities are available from 1997 - present, and in some cases (largely large universities) earlier.
• WorldCat: Over 36 million records of any type of material cataloged by OCLC member libraries. Includes citations of manuscripts written as early as the 11th century. Updated daily. Useful for identifying materials not owned by the OSU Library (which you can request via Interlibrary Services.)
• Social Science Databases - the following three databases are highly interdisciplinary, meaning they draw upon each other for their research. There are other social science databases - these are the three most popular:
  • ERIC (Education)
  • PsycINFO (Psychology)
  • Sociological Abstracts (Sociology)
• JSTOR: JSTOR is an archive of journal back issues available full-text in a variety of disciplines. Coverage dates back to the early 1900s in some cases, but isn't very current after about 2002-2003.
• Cambridge University Press Online Journals: Access to tables of contents, abstracts, full-text, search facilities, and alerting services for selected Cambridge University Press research journals in all disciplines. 1997 - present.
• Oxford University Press Online Journals: Access to tables of contents, abstracts, full-text, and alerting services for selected Oxford University Press research journals in all disciplines. May be searched by journal title and issue in which case the complete table of contents is displayed or by keyword, regardless of the journal title and issue. Updated weekly. 1999 - present
• Project Muse: Full text access for about scholarly journals published by Johns Hopkins University Press (43 titles). Coverage generally ranges from 1993 -present. Fully searchable, browsable and retrievable.
• Proquest General topic index. Good for background information on just about any topc. Abstracts available. Coverage 1986 - present. Partial full-text available.
• Academic Search Elite Covers topics pertaining to academics, social sciences, humanities, general science, education and multi-cultural studies, good for background information on cases.
• Web of Science: Offers sitewide access to: Science Citation Index Expanded 1981 - present with abstracts available from 1991 forward and Social Sciences Citation Index 1981 - present with abstracts available from 1992 forward. Provides over 1.1 million records and more than 23 million cited references per year from more than 230 disciplines. Unique because it allows you to see who has cited research, leading you to more resources.

Library Services

• Document Delivery: You can request any book or dissertation, or any article via Interlibrary Loan, using this handy Interlibrary Loan electronic form. If the Library owns the journal in print, we can scan an article and send it to you via Document Delivery. That's right, if you don't want to make photocopies of an article we will do it for you free of charge. All you need do is submit an Interlibrary Loan request. Some restrictions apply regarding the number of requests you may submit daily (I think it's 20 requests per day), as well as when requests are processed during holidays and non-class times.
• Bibliographic Management software: The OSU Library has a site license for two bibliographic management software products: EndNote and Reference Manager. These two products allow you to keep track of your research citations, and in the case of EndNote, it works in conjunction with MS Word to allow you to "cite while you write." You can download either product for free (as long as you are an OSU student, staff or faculty member) and install it on up to two computers. To download the software, you need to register at: http://www.library.okstate.edu/bibmanager/index.htm. Make sure to read the instructions carefully - there are several other files you'll need to download in addition to the bibliographic managment software (connection files, filters, and patches, etc.)
• Journal Alerting Services: There are four types of alerting services:
  • New Journal Issue Alerts: Receive automatic alerts when new issues match your journal title or subject preferences. These are often just the message letting you know the new issues are available.
  • New Journal Title Alerts: You will receive automatic alerts when new journal titles are added to the database or vendor service (i.e., Project Muse).
  • Citation Alerts: After adding/selecting an article(s), you will receive alerts when the article is cited in another article that has been added to the database or vendor service.
  • Search Alerts: After saving a conducted search, you will receive alerts on an immediate, daily, weekly or monthly basis when new content matches your saved search.
  • Table of Contents Alert: Receive alerts when new content from your chosen publications is added and/or when future content listings are announced.
  You can set up alerting services in just about every library database (note: not all alerting types are available in every database.) For instructions in setting up some alerting services, you might want to take a look at this handout. The Library has a page set up with some links to some alerting services (some free, some not) at: http://www.library.okstate.edu/database/alertservice.htm
• Victor D. Baeza is the Library's Director of Library Graduate and Research Services, Email: victor.baeza@okstate.edu. If there is anything he can do to assist, please feel free to contact him.
• Finally, the Library has a nice website for student services. Please feel free to take a gander at it to see what the library offers, in addition to your class visit today.

Things to Keep in Mind:

• Abbreviated journal names: occasionally databases and indexes will cite journal names as abbreviations, and these abbreviations can sometimes be difficult to decipher. Generally, you will need to know the complete journal name to search the OSU Catalog. Consult Periodical Title Abbreviations: By Abbreviation (Call number: 050.148 P446 1996, located at the Reference Desk, 1st floor). If the first source doesn't give you the full journal title, you'll need to consult CASSI (Call number: 016.54 A5122c 1907/99, also located at the Reference Desk.)
• Does the OSU Library own a journal? To determine if the OSU Library owns a journal you've located in one of the above databases, please search the OSU Catalog by journal title. If it is own by the Library, you should determine the call number. All journals (with few exceptions) have a call number. You can determine the floor the journal is located on by consulting a Call Slip. Remember that current journal issues (within the last current year, by and large) are located on the first floor, while older, back issues (or bound volumes) are shelved by call number. Here are OSU Library floor maps if you need them.
• What does it mean when I see this in my database search results? This image means that the Library's Article Linker funtion may have full-text available in another database. To find full-text elsewhere, simply click on the image. Article Linker will tell you several things:
  1. is full-text for this article available (if so, there will be a link to the article)
  2. does the Library physically own the journal (will offer a link to search the OSU Catalog, which should give you a call number)
  3. it will give you an option for Document Delivery.
• The OSU Library also maintains a list of full-text periodicals. Feel free to cross reference your citations with the full-text list, but keep in mind this will add steps and time to your research process, and Article Linker generally does this for you.

If you need to get ahold of me, feel free.

Prof. Dan Chaney
306 Edmon Low Library
405-744-9772
Email: dan.chaney@okstate.edu