Psychology

Psychology Indexes and Databases

PsycINFO (journal articles, 1967-present; chapters of books, 1987-present): This is the primary, disciplinary database in the field of psychology and is the best database to begin with when seeking journal articles to support a psychology research project.
Historic PsycINFO (1872-1966): This contains the earlier years of the PsycINFO database. It employs a less highly structured subject indexing language than the more recent PsycINFO (1967- ).
Psychology and Behavioral Sciences Collection (1970's-present, with a few titles back to the early 1960's): This database provides indexing, abstracts, and full text for over 510 scholarly journals concerning topics in emotional and behavioral characteristics, psychiatry & psychology, mental processes, anthropology, and observational and experimental methods. Included in the full text offerings are over 490 peer-reviewed journals.

Interdisciplinary Indexes and Databases

Academic Search Complete (EBSCOhost) (Coverage is from the early 1970's for some titles to the present): This interdisciplinary database indexes over 8200 scholarly journals, popular magazines, and journals of commentary. More than 4650 of the journals indexed provide the full-text of the articles within the database. An option for limiting to peer-reviewed journals exists to increase the scholarly nature of a search.
Article 1st (FirstSearch) (1990- ): This comprehensive, interdisciplinary magazine and journal article references database is useful primarily as a current awareness tool. It indexes over 16,000 journals and magazines by key words of article titles. Psychology students would be best served by beginning with PsycINFO and using this database to update their literature search with more recent articles than those found in PsycINFO. The database also allows the user to browse references by journal title and issue.
BIOSIS Previews (1980- ): This is the primary database in the field of biology. It is useful, as a supplement to PsycINFO, for psychology research projects that branch into animal psychology.
EJC (OhioLINK Electronic Journal Center): The EJC provides access to the electronic journal articles made available to our students and faculty through our affiliation with OhioLINK. The site also provides a rudimentary search engine to those articles.
ERIC (1966- ): This is the primary database in the field of education. It is useful for psychology research projects that branch into educational psychology. Search results in this database often overlaps with those done in PsycINFO, but there are unique resources in this database as well.
Medline (1966- ): This is the primary database in the field of medicine. It is useful, as a supplement to PsycINFO, for psychology research projects that intersect with the medical field.
Science Citation Index Expanded (ISI) (1980- )
Social Sciences Citation Index (ISI) (1980- )
Social Sciences Citation Index (Print volumes: 1978-79), WOO Reference Z7161.S65
SocINDEX (EBSCOhost) (1895-present): This is a comprehensive journal article database for the field of sociology and related fields, including social psychology. A high percentage of the references in this database include full text

Reference Sources

Reference sources are particularly useful for background information on topics and definitions on concepts and specialized terminology. The following specialized encyclopedias and dictionaries are particularly useful in the field of psychology. There are many other similar sources on the shelves next to those listed here, so this can be used as a browsers guide to psychology reference sources.

Access Science @ McGraw-Hill: The Online Encyclopedia of Science and Technology,
Comprehensive Handbook of Psychological Assessment (Hersen, 2004), WOO Reference BF176 .C654 2004
Corsini Encyclopedia of Psychology and Behavioral Science (Craighaid and Nemeroff, 2001, 3rd ed.), WOO Reference BF31.E522 2001 and online
Dictionary of Psychology (Colman, 2006, 2nd ed.) WOO Reference BF31 .C65 2006 and online
Encyclopaedia Britannica Online
Encyclopedia of Psychiatry, Psychology, and Psychoanalysis (Wolman, 1996), WOO Reference RC437 .E49 1996
Encyclopedia of Psychology (Kazdin, 2000), WOO Reference BF31 .E52 2000
Encyclopedia of Social Psychology (Baumeister and Vohs, 2007), WOO Reference HM1007 .E53 2007
Handbook of Psychology (Weiner, 2003), WOO Reference BF121 .H1955 2003
The MIT Encyclopedia of the Cognitive Sciences (Wilson and Keil, 1999), WOO Reference BF311 .M556 1999
Psychiatric Dictionary (Campbell, 2004, 8th ed.), WOO Reference RC437.H5 2004
Stevens' Handbook of Experimental Psychology (Pashler, 2002, 3rd ed.), WOO Reference BF181 .H336 2002

Testing Sources

Finding information on tests and measures can be a challenge. Libraries, in general, do not carry many published tests in their collections because of publisher restrictions on public access to psychological tests. The College of Wooster psychology department keeps a collection of tests for use by College of Wooster students and faculty over in Morgan Hall. Others are available for purchase direct from the publishers. Occasionally, some can be found in journals or books of collected essays.

Usually, when students ask for information on tests, they will be directed first to the Mental Measurements Yearbook, Tests In Print, the Directory of Unpublished Experimental Mental Measures (only for the hard to find, unpublished tests), and then PsycINFO.

Directory of Unpublished Experimental Mental Measures (v. 1, 1974-present), WOO Reference BF431 .G624: Useful for finding references to hard to find, unpublished tests that are printed within journal articles.
Mental Measurements Yearbook (Print Volumes: 1938-present), WOO Reference BF176 .M47
Mental Measurements Yearbook (Online: 1985-present): Produced by the Buros Institute, this yearbook contains a comprehensive listing of information about and reviews of English-language standardized tests covering educational skills, personality, vocational aptitude, psychology, and related areas. Both print and online versions enable searching by test author, test variable (using the score index or label), and test title.
Tests In Print VII : An Index to Tests, Test Reviews, and the Literature on Specific Tests (2006), WOO Reference BF176 .T44 2006: This Buros Institute publication provides up-to-date information on test availability and works as a cross reference index to the print Mental Measurements Yearbook.
Tests in Print: Produced by the Buros Institute of Mental Measurements at the University of Nebraska, Tests in Print (TIP) serves as a comprehensive bibliography to all known commercially available tests that are currently in print in the English language. TIP provides vital information to users including test purpose, test publisher, in-print status, price, test acronym, intended test population, administration times, publication date(s), and test author(s). A score index permits users to identify what is being measured by each test. Tests in Print is directly linked to the critical, candid test reviews published in the Mental Measurements Yearbook (MMY) series. Users can research current test information from the TIP series and continue their search to all available test reviews published in the MMY series. Tests in Print is an indispensable reference for professionals in areas such as education, psychology, business, as well as those interested in the critical issues of tests and testing.

Finding Journals...

...by the TITLE of the journal: Search by the TITLE OF THE JOURNAL on either the Libraries' eJournals/Journals web page or the CONSORT Journal Title search.

...finding journals by a particular PUBLISHER (e.g., journals published by the American Psychological Association):

CONSORT KEYWORD SEARCH: a:american psychological association and s:periodicals

...finding journals with a particular FOCUS (e.g., journals on cognition):

CONSORT KEYWORD SEARCH: s:cognition and s:periodicals

Selected Internet Sites

American Psychological Association: Association and membership information, publication/journals and product information, and a public help center.
Archive of the History of American Psychology: Provides information about this University of Akron archive. The archive houses a rich collection of materials from over 740 psychologists and 50 organizations, including personal papers, various media, test materials, books, and other materials.
Association for Psychological Science: Information about membership, annual convention, and journals. Includes a news and research section, a student caucus, and employment ads.
Classics in the History of Psychology: Full text site that provides electronic versions of public domain books and articles to researchers, faculty, and students of the history of psychology. Project director is Christopher D. Green of York University. Provides a searchable database and a listing by author and topic of texts included at the site.
Google Directory > Science > Social Sciences > Psychology: An extensive, annotated subject listing of web sites on all aspects of psychology and related fields.
Dr. John Grohol's Psych Central: An extensive, annotated listing of mental health resources for both professionals and consumers. Provides a user-feedback rating system.
Internet Mental Health: Internet site on Mental health created by Phillip W. Long, M.D. in a joint effort from a Canada-Japan Mental Health Exchange to provide Japan with more psychiatric information. Includes a comprehensive listing of links on disorders, full text links, and a framework of predesigned searches that implement live searches of the PubMed site, finding sources from Medline and related medical databases.
National Institute of Mental Health: An important, government-run, public mental health site, complete with full text reports and fact sheets, appropriate links to other sites, and information on current research and grant opportunities.
Psych Web: Maintained by Russ Dewey, this is an extensive, annotated listing of web sites related to psychology, including listings to APA style guides, electronic books, career information, departments of psychology, scholarly resources, electronic journals, self-help resources, and links to other psychology megalists.
Psycoloquy: "...refereed international, interdisciplinary, electronic journal sponsored by the American Psychological Association (APA)."
Scholarly Societies Project--Psychology: This project, maintains an annotated listing of scholarly societies throughout the world, complete with acronyms and usability ratings. This link is to the psychology section of the project.
Social Psychology Network: Deep site containing over 5000 social psychology and related resources on the Internet. Includes links to topical sources, course pages, teaching resources, online research studies that users can participate in, ratings of graduate schools, and a wide variety of other related links.
Yahoo! Social Science > Psychology: Extensive, annotated listing of psychology web sites, branches of psychology, journals, history, education, organizations, psychologists biographies/information.

Evaluation Sources

Magazines for Libraries (2008, 16th ed.), WOO Ready Reference Z6941 .M23 2008: This reference tool provides evaluative critiques on magazines and journals in a wide variety of disciplines and is often used by librarians to make subscription decisions.
Journals in Psychology: A Resource Listing for Authors (1997, 5th ed.), WOO Reference BF76.8 .J68 1997: This reference tool provides evaluative critiques on magazines and journals in a wide variety of disciplines and is often used by librarians to make subscription decisions.

Citation Style Guides

Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (2001, 5th ed.), WOO Ready Reference BF76.7 .P83 2001: This printed volume is the official style manual of the American Psychological Association, often referred to as APA style.
APA Research Style Cribsheet: Created by Russ Dewey at Georgia Southern University and updated by Bill Scott at The College of Wooster, this is a useful, brief format guide to APA style.
APA Style: This Web site provides excerpts from the 5th Edition of the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association as well as regular updates to electronic formats of citation using APA style.

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Julia Gustafson
Access Services Librarian
330/263-2315