Category: For Individual Subscribers

PsycINFO Expert Tip: Find Items Added to PsycINFO During a Specific Timeframe

Posted on by Patti Avellanet in For Faculty, For Individual Subscribers, For Librarians, For Students

Recently, we reviewed how to edit a search alert in order to incorporate recent changes to the Thesaurus of Psychological Index Terms®, which was updated in December. In our example, we updated a search that included an Index Term that’s no longer being used to tag records in PsycINFO®: Aspergers Syndrome.

Screenshot of release date on a record on APA PsycNET

This article was added to PsycINFO and PsycARTICLES® on November 2, 2015.

We add records about new articles, book chapters, and dissertations to PsycINFO twice a week, on Mondays and Thursdays. Every item in an APA database includes the specific date it was added to that database. On APA PsycNET®, this is called the Release Date. It’s formatted in year-month-day order, with no spaces, hyphens, or slashes. For example: 20151214 or 20160201.

You can use this information to create a search that will retrieve results that were added to the database in a specific timeframe. With this technique, you can create a search that will find all the records added to PsycINFO from the date that this Index Term was changed, until the date that you changed your search alert.

We have put together a set of slides that demonstrate how to search by the release date on APA PsycNET, EBSCOhost, Ovid and ProQuest. If you are affiliated with a college or university, you can ask a librarian for assistance with this process. Subscribers to APA PsycNET Gold, Gold Plus, and Platinum packages can contact APA Databases & Electronic Resources Customer Relations at psycinfo@apa.org or 800-374-2722.

 

Stigma and Health: A New Journal from APA

Posted on by Customer Relations Staff in For Faculty, For Individual Subscribers, For Librarians, For Students

Three new journals will be added to PsycARTICLES® over the course of 2016. We will provide updates on their availability throughout the year. More information about APA’s journals, including special issues, is available on our website.

Cover of Stigma & HealthVolume 1, Issue 1 of Stigma and Health, a new publication from APA Journals®, is now available. Readers can access this issue, along with the inaugural special issue published in August 2015, electronically via PsycARTICLES®.

Stigma and Health publishes research examining the ways in which stigma impacts people living with mental and physical illness. This includes studies on the form and impact of stigma, methods of decreasing and erasing stigma, and treatment of its effects. Theoretical reviews are also welcome. Volume 1, Issue 1 includes articles examining the stigma around veganism, self-stigma among people living with schizophrenia, and the psychometric evaluation of sexual minorities.

PsycARTICLES users on APA PsycNET® (including subscribers to APA PsycNET Gold, Gold Plus, and Platinum), EBSCOhost, Ovid, and ProQuest can review the first issue by browsing PsycARTICLES or by performing a title search for the journal.

Related Resources:

Learn more about Stigma and Health, including manuscript submission policies and information about subscribing in print.

PsycINFO Expert Tip: Updating Search Alerts When a Thesaurus Term Changes

Posted on by Patti Avellanet in For Faculty, For Individual Subscribers, For Librarians, For Students

The Thesaurus of Psychological Index Terms®, which is used to tag and categorize records in PsycINFO®, was updated in December 2015. In addition to adding terms, we changed five terms that had already been a part of the Thesaurus – they are no longer Index Terms, but have been turned into Use references.

Here are the terms that were changed, along with the new Index Terms that have taken their places:

Terms that are now Use references New Index Terms to search
Aspergers Syndrome
Autism
Pervasive Developmental Disorders		  Autism Spectrum Disorders
Complications (Disorders) Sequelae
Q Sort Testing Technique Q-Sort

Continue reading →

From the Deck of . . . the ALA Midwinter 2016 Lunch & Learn

Posted on by Patti Avellanet in For Faculty, For Individual Subscribers, For Librarians, For Students

Welcome to “From the Deck of . . .” an irregular series in which we highlight search demos and other information from the slide decks we create for our live training sessions. You can view and download these materials from our SlideShare account.

One of the items we discussed during our presentation at the American Library Association Midwinter Meeting was how to find book reviews in PsycINFO. We performed this search demonstration live using ProQuest, and have recreated it below with screenshots. You can take similar steps to complete this search on APA PsycNET, EBSCOhost, or Ovid. If you need assistance, talk to a librarian, or contact us at psycinfo@apa.org.

Before we get started, remember that PsycINFO is not a full text database, so the full text of the reviews you find may not be displayed. If you’re searching PsycINFO through your college or university’s subscription, ask a librarian for help finding the full text. If you’re searching through an individual subscription to APA PsycNET, this brief tutorial may be of assistance. Continue reading →

PsycINFO Expert Tip: Grants & Sponsorships

Posted on by Patti Avellanet in For Faculty, For Individual Subscribers, For Librarians, For Students

Do you use the Grant/Sponsorship field in PsycINFO? This field displays the funding sources that the authors include in their acknowledgements. The Grant/Sponsorship field will capture data about grant funding, but you’ll also see information on fellowships, scholarships, departmental awards, and more – any type of funding source that the authors acknowledge. Take a look at the variety of funding acknowledged here:

Screenshot of the Grant/Sponsorship field from a PsycINFO record on APA PsycNET.

The Grant/Sponsorship field from a PsycINFO record, shown here on APA PsycNET.

The Grant/Sponsorship field is divided into four sub-fields: Sponsor, Recipient, Grant Number, and Other Details. You’ll always see the Sponsor and Recipient sub-fields, even if the authors didn’t indicate who the sponsor was (though they almost always provide this information) or who was the named recipient of the funding. If the authors provide the grant number, we include that in a separate sub-field. Any other information about the funding source is added to the Other Details sub-field. This can run the gamut from the name of a scholarship to the name of a large-scale research initiative.

All four of these sub-fields may be searched by choosing the Grant/Sponsorship option. For example, try searching PsycINFO for your institution, or for a grant number (try KZCC-EW-103-2).

A screenshot of searching PsycINFO on APA PsycNET for the grant number KZCC-EW-103-2.

Searching PsycINFO, via APA PsycNET, for the grant number.

Why provide this information? It’s one more detail that we believe can be helpful in working with PsycINFO. Instructors can use the information to open a conversation about bias in research with their class; it can also be used as a source of ideas for researchers who are seeking funding, looking for collaborators, or want to find out if the funder was a government agency or commercial entity.

You won’t see the Grant/Sponsorship field on every record in PsycINFO, as we didn’t begin collecting this information until 2005. And of course, not everything indexed in the database includes funding acknowledgements.

Related Resources: