roar@UEL – the University’s institutional repository...

…is where you can find full-text copies of UEL’s own research output. As the blurb says, “It has been established to facilitate both dissemination and preservation of scholarly work created by members of the University of East London”.

The School of Psychology is well represented with over 100 items currently deposited. Everything in roar@UEL is available to read in full text, completely free of charge, all of which is aimed at achieving wider readership and increased citations for UEL research. For further information, check the repository support pages or contact Rachel Graham, the University’s Research Services Librarian.

Going beyond PsycINFO with ScienceDirect...

... is highly recommended. Although PsycINFO is an excellent source of journal articles, the library also offers access to other databases which cover psychology. ScienceDirect is perhaps the best of these, containing well over 200 psychology journals, with 128 available with immediate full text access. ScienceDirect can be accessed from the A-Z list on the ‘e-journals and databases’ page on the library website.

To search ScienceDirect specifically for articles published in psychology journals, click on the green ‘search’ button to go to the full search screen. After entering your search terms, you should then select ‘psychology’ from the subject listing before running the search. This will restrict your results to articles from psychology journals. If you want to browse the available psychology journals on ScienceDirect, then select ‘psychology’ from the browse section on the ScienceDirect home page.

Accessing the Internet from another university...

...can often be difficult as most universities only allow their own students and staff to log on to their computers and wi-fi network. However, UEL is now a member of EduRoam (‘educational roaming’) which means that if you are visiting another university library, either because it is closer to where you live or because they have a special collection you wish to use, then you should be able to log-in using your UEL username and password.

For further information, including how to take advantage of EduRoam and which universities it works at, check out the UEL EduRoam page.

Improve your PsycINFO searches with the thesaurus...

...which can be accessed by clicking on the ‘thesaurus’ link in the blue bar at the top of the PsycINFO search and results screens. The thesaurus can help improve your searches in two ways. Firstly, it can help suggest alternative terms to search with, much like a traditional thesaurus, and will often suggest broader and narrow terms, too. For example, if you search the thesaurus for amnesia, then it suggests ‘memory disorders’ as a broader term, ‘retrograde amnesia’ as one of several narrower terms, and ‘forgetting’ as a related term. Secondly, it can help identify the ‘correct’ terminology to use to find articles on that topic. For example, if you search the thesaurus for cognitive dysfunction, it tells you to use ‘cognitive impairment’, while if you search for student protest, it tells you to use ‘student activism’. By using the terminology it suggests, you are likely to find better, more focused results because the terminology suggested is the language used by PsycINFO to organise and index all of its articles.

New books in the library...

...added to stock during the month of July 2010 can be viewed from this link: July 2010 new books list. Please note that it only lists items purchased for stock from the library's 'psychology' book funds.

Lots of new books on this month's list, owing mainly to a one-off piece of additional funding from the new Vice-Chancellor. There are plenty of new editions of books, including the 6th edition of Eysenck's "Cognitive psychology", the 11th edition of Pervin's "Personality: theory and research" and the 3rd edition of Pervin's "Handbook of personality". We have also acquired a reference copy of the four-volume "Handbook of child psychology (6th edition)", edited by William Damon and Richard M. Lerner.

New e-books include: 2nd edition of Maltby's "Personality, individual differences and intelligence", McMahon's "101 coaching strategies and techniques" (also added to stock in hard copy) and Christine Dancey's "Statistics without maths for psychology (4th edition)". For the full list of new books added to stock during July 2010 follow the link above. All items (including e-books) can be located via the library catalogue.

APA 6th edition referencing guides...

...are now available in the library. The brand new 6th edition of APA style for referencing contains some updates over previous editions. We have multiple copies of all the official guides, including the Publication Manual, the Concise Rules of APA Style and some guides on presenting and displaying your finding. Further information is available through the library catalogue - I would suggest running a search for "APA style".

Dissertations and theses from outside the UK...

...can unfortunately be rather tricky to get hold of. Your best bet is to try contacting the author. If you cannot find their contact details (via a web search), then you can try contacting the university department or university library where the author was based at the time they wrote it, as they may be able to put you in touch with the author. Very occasionally, they may even be able to point you towards obtaining a copy!

If you find you reach a dead end in your search, then by all means get in touch with me and I'll see what assistance I can be. However, the library has no direct means of obtaining overseas (i.e. non-UK) dissertations and theses, although we might just be able to offer some advice and support which points you in the right direction. Of course, for UK theses simply head to the British Library's EThOS website.