Tutorial Thursday: Using the Author Affiliation Field in PsycINFO on EBSCOhost

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

It’s Tutorial Thursday! In this series, we explore APA’s library of video tutorials available on the PsycINFO® YouTube channel and the APA Style CENTRAL® YouTube channel. Please feel free to link to or embed our videos in your library websites or LibGuides, course management systems, or other locations where students, faculty, and researchers will find them.

We recently updated one of our tutorials: Using the Author Affiliation Field in PsycINFO on EBSCOhost.

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Do you want to discover what institutions are conducting research relevant to a specific topic, or track down a corresponding author’s contact information?

The Author Affiliation field in PsycINFO provides information about authors’ affiliations at the time of publication. This can be helpful to psychology students and practitioners who want to locate an author, see the kind of research conducted at an institution, or are considering where to apply to graduate school based on topics of interest.

This three-minute video demonstrates how to use the PsycINFO® Author Affiliation Field when searching PsycINFO on the EBSCOhost platform, and includes:

  • Description and search examples for the PsycINFO Author Affiliation field;
  • Using the Source, Authors, and Address fields to help obtain the contact information for a corresponding author; and
  • How to search for articles written by authors affiliated with a particular institution.

This tutorial is a great resource to link from a LibGuide or course module for any class working with APA Databases on EBSCOhost, and can be helpful in answering email or chat reference questions.

The previous version of this tutorial will remain available, but if you have embedded or linked to it anywhere, we encourage you to update your materials to link to this new version.

Related Resources:

New in PsycBOOKS: September 2017

Posted on by Patti Avellanet in For Librarians

In September, APA added 3 new APA titles to PsycBOOKS®:

Bibliographic records are available through your PsycBOOKS vendor. You may also download RDA records directly from APA by following the instructions in the APA PsycNET® Administrator Help Menu.

View the past monthly PsycBOOKS update lists, a list of sample PsycBOOKS titles, and the full coverage list for PsycBOOKS.

PsycINFO® Expert Tip: Searching by Keyword Across Platforms

Posted on by Marta Soto in For Librarians

Keyword searching is a good fit for researchers who are new to a topic and want to get the full scope of the research available. Before you begin searching, you should be aware of the differences between keywords and index terms. Also, note the platform you use to access PsycINFO®, since it may search additional fields alongside keyword.

 

Keywords (also called Key Concepts or Identifiers) are words or brief phrases that describe the document’s content. The list of keywords for an article is often provided by the author or publisher, though sometimes it is created by APA staff. Keywords can be any word or phrase, and so they are “uncontrolled.”

Index Terms (also called Subjects or Subject Headings) are chosen by APA staff from a pre-exiting list of major topics. This means that Index Terms are a “controlled” vocabulary.

 

Unlike the other PsycINFO fields, searching by keyword pulls in results from additional fields on some platforms. This means if you run the same PsycINFO keyword search on different platforms, you may get a different set of results. If you notice you are getting results that don’t include the keywords you searched for, check the index terms field or the title field for the terms.

 

Below are the fields that are included in a PsycINFO keyword search on each platform.

  • On EBSCOhost, select KW keywords to search the keywords, or SU Subjects to search keywords and index terms (DE Subjects [exact])
  • On Ovid, select key concepts to search the keywords
  • On ProQuest, you can select identifier (keyword) to search for keywords, or subject heading (all) to search keywords and index terms (MJSUB)
  • On APA PsycNET, select keywords to search for keywords, index terms, and title

 

 

Here is an APA PsycNET record where a keyword search for “big bang theory” led to a record with the phrase in the title, but not in the keyword field.

You can search by keyword to become familiar with a new topic, identify the best journals or authors in an area, or see different perspectives on an issue. However, if you are planning to search on a topic over a long period of time, or revisit a saved search, we recommend using Index Terms instead. Searching by Index Term returns more consistent results because they are assigned from a controlled list and because they return the same records regardless of platform – no additional fields are searched.

 

You can learn more about keywords and other PsycINFO vocabularies in our previous post on searching with keywords, Index Terms, and more.

Related resource: How & Why to Use the Thesaurus tutorials, a guide to searching with index terms

APA Librarian Conference Travel Award: Apply by Nov. 30 for Spring 2018 Conferences

Posted on by Patti Avellanet in For Librarians

Do you work in an academic or health sciences library in the United States? Are you an early- or mid-career librarian? Are you looking for sources of funding for a conference you’d like to attend this spring?

If the answer to all of those questions is yes, please consider applying for an APA Librarian Conference Travel Award! Through November 30, 2017, we are accepting applications for conferences taking place from January to April 2018. This includes – but is not limited to – the National Institute on the Teaching of Psychology, ALA Midwinter, Electronic Resources & Libraries, Code4Lib, the Distance Library Services Conference and the Annual Conference on the First Year Experience.

The award is intended to help defray conference-related expenses for librarians with less than 15 years of experience after receiving their MLS or MLIS. Three cash awards are distributed three times each calendar year, and the application cycle opens and closes on a rolling basis. At this time, we are not limiting the conferences that are eligible for travel award funding. Applicants should identify the conference that best meets their professional needs, and explain how attendance will support their current duties and future goals.

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New Handbooks: APA Handbook of Giftedness and Talent & APA Handbook of Forensic Neuropsychology

Posted on by Marta Soto in For Faculty, For Individual Subscribers, For Librarians

The APA Handbooks in Psychology series was launched in 2011 to provide comprehensive overviews and in-depth study of specific subfields within psychology. All of the Handbooks are included in the PsycBOOKS® database, and titles are also available individually.

The series currently contains 26 authoritative titles, including the 2014 CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title, APA Handbook of Sexuality and Psychology.

The most recent addition to the series, the APA Handbook of Giftedness and Talent, was published in August 2017. It incorporates the most recent thinking and cutting-edge research from a wide range of fields related to gifted education, including developmental and social psychology, the neurosciences, cognitive science, and education.

Earlier this summer, the APA Handbook of Forensic Neuropsychology, was published in July 2017. This handbook covers the scientific and clinical neuropsychological advances and their application in forensic contexts.

PsycBOOKS users on APA PsycNET® (including subscribers to APA PsycNET Gold, Gold Plus, and Platinum), EBSCOhost, Ovid and ProQuest can access the entire series by browsing PsycBOOKS or by performing a title search for a particular handbook.

Institutions also have the option of purchasing handbooks individually. Print only, Electronic only, or Electronic + Print options are available through APA, with electronic access provided via the APA PsycNET® platform. For more information on pricing and availability, please see the APA website or contact us at quotes@apa.org.