| Library Guide - early childhood education & care |
I’m your Liaison Librarian for Early Childhood Education and Care, Deniz Bilgen. If you need help with finding or accessing any of the sources mentioned in this guide, I will be happy to help. Contact me in the library or as follow:
Email: d.bilgen@newman.ac.uk
Tel: 0121 476 1181 ex.1405
This subject guide is intended to help you research the information that you will be required to find for the Early Childhood Education and Care subject area. It provides a comprehensive overview of the best resources for your subject area. Remember, a comprehensive literature search of the available resources will allow you to read widely around a subject, absorb a range of viewpoints and reach your own conclusions on a topic based on what you've read. Exactly the kind of behaviour your lecturers are looking for!
The library catalogue is accessible at designated terminals in the library or online via the library homepage .
You can search the catalogue by keyword, title, author or year. The keyword option is especially useful for searching a particular subject as it performs a flexible search.
From the drop-down box on the opening screen of the catalogue, you can also opt to search a particular collection of resources. For example:
• Journals – searches the journal titles available in the library. For references to specific articles you should use the electronic bibliographic databases and online journals.
• School Experience – searches for teaching materials such as lesson plans, topic books, kits and artefacts.
An online help guide to using the catalogue is available (click on the Help tab in the library catalogue). There is also a tutorial on the Library Zone page of Moodle How to find items in the library but if you need any further help please ask a member of library staff.
Quick reference sources, which are available in the General Reference Collection in the library and online, provide a useful starting point for your research. Sources include encyclopedias, dictionaries, handbooks, directories and yearbooks and you can use them to find:
• Explanations and definitions of particular terms or topics.
•
Contact addresses or information on people or organisations.
•
Factual and statistical information.
The library subscribes to the following services which can be accessed from the E-Reference section of the Electronic Resources page on the library website:
• Britannica Online – Academic Electronic version of this authoritative encyclopedia. Also links through to full-text journal articles on topics covered in the encyclopedia.
• Oxford Reference Online - Quick reference information together with authoritative, in-depth articles. Contains the full text of over 130 dictionaries, plus an encyclopaedia, thesauri, and guides to English grammar and usage. Includes a wide range of additional material such as maps, illustrations and timelines.
You will find the following and many others in the General Reference Collection:
• Education Yearbook 2008/2009 - The UK’s most comprehensive source of information on professionals in the education arena. Areas covered include: Voluntary Service and Groups for Children and Young People, Educational Visits and Special Needs Organisations.
• The New Walford Guide to Reference Resources: Volume 2 the Social Sciences - Points you to an expertly chosen selection of key, quality resources – accessible electronically and in print. Sections include: Social Work and Social Welfare, Sociology, Education and Learning and Government.
The Library uses the Dewey decimal system to classify and arrange its books by subject. The catalogue will give you the shelf number of the book you need, and tell you if it is in the library or out on loan. The following are some examples of shelf numbers relevant to Early Childhood Education and Care:
| Abused and neglected children | 362.76 |
| Bullying | 371.58 |
| Child development - general | 305.231 |
| Child development - psychological, cognitive, social | 155.4 |
| Child development - physical | 612.65 |
| Children and society | 362.7 |
| Citizenship | 370.115 |
| Creativity in the Early Years | 370.157 |
| Early years education and care | 372.21 |
| Educational research | 370.72 |
| Emotional difficulties - pupils | 371.94 |
| Government control in education | 379.15 |
| Health promotion | 362.1 |
| Health - children | 362.19892 |
| Inclusion | 371.9046 |
| Multicultural and bilingual | 371.97 |
| Primary education | 372 |
| Psychology | 150 |
| Psychology - education | 370.15 |
| Pupil guidance and counselling | 371.4 |
| Secondary education | 373 |
| Social policy | 361.61 |
| Sociology | 301 |
| Sociology - education | 370.19 |
| Special needs and advocacy | 371.9 |
| Study skills | 378.17 |
| Teacher/parent relations | 371.103 |
Some of the library’s most popular texts are now available to you electronically through our e-book service provided by Dawsonera.
Dawsonera can be accessed from the Electronic Resources E-books section of the page on the library website . You will need to be logged into Athens to access the full-text books which the library has purchased (details can be found in the Athens information section of the Electronic Resources page on the library website). Individual titles can also be accessed via the library catalogue.
For some modules you may be required to purchase some or all of the texts from the ‘essential reading’ on your reading lists. You may find the following retailers useful:
Abebooks - Online bookshop especially useful for second hand and out of print books.
Amazon - Online books, often much cheaper than RRP!
Waterstones - Search and buy online or try their branch located on the University of Birmingham Edgbaston campus – they often have textbooks in stock that are difficult to obtain from elsewhere. Telephone them on 0121 472 3034.
Journals are an excellent source of information. They show evidence of wider reading, are important for research and help you to keep informed of any changes and developments in the study of your subject area. They are published more frequently than textbooks, so the information they hold is often more up-to-date. Tutorials and guides to finding Journal articles are available on the Library Zone page of Moodle.
You can search for journal titles on the library catalogue by selecting ‘journals’ from the drop-down collections box on the search screen. The journal collection is for reference only, so titles should always be accessible. Journals are shelved alphabetically by title on Level 1 of the library.
Examples of titles that you may find useful for the Early Childhood Education and Care subject area are:
British Educational Research Journal
Children and Society
Children and Young People Now
Childhood
Child and Family Social Work
Community Care
Early Years: An International Journal of Research and Development
International Journal of Early Years Education
The library subscribes to many different online journal services, all of which are accessible from the Databases and e-journals section of the Electronic Resources page on the library website. There is a useful tutorial Finding e-journals on the Library Zone page of Moodle. For Early Childhood Education and Care, you will find the following services particulary useful:
Education Research Complete The definitive online resource for education research. Topics covered include all levels of education from early childhood to higher education, and all educational specialties, such as multilingual education, health education, and testing. Education Research Complete provides indexing and abstracts for more than 2,100 journals, as well as full text for more than 1,200 journals, and includes full text for nearly 500 books and monographs.
Childlink Database focusing on Legislation, Policies and Practices regarding children, young people and families with information on Education, Welfare, Lifestyle, Justice, Benefit Issues, Youth Affairs, Health and Employment.
Swetswise Full-text articles from a range of journals, including titles currently held in hard copy in the library.
Journals A-Z List This is a complete listing of every journal that the library subscribes to both in print and electronic formats. You can search this database by journal title only; article level searching is not possible here. If we have access to the journal in print you will be linked through to the library catalogue and if we have electronic access to the journal, it will link you through to the relevant database or online journal service.This list is particularly useful if you have been given a reference to a journal article that you would like to use in your research and you need to know if the library subscribes to it.
You will need to be logged into Athens in order to be able to access most of these resources, details can be found in the Athens information section of the Electronic Resources page on the library website.
Journals not available at Newman
We may be able to provide an article from a journal that we don’t have in the library via our inter-library loans service. Please ask at the Enquiry desk or email: library-enquiries@newman.ac.uk for details. This service incurs a small charge and is also available for books.
If the journal articles you require are held in a university library near to you, you can visit that library to access their journals through the SCONUL Access scheme. You can find out which universities have the journals you need by checking the library catalogue of individual institutions or by checking Zetoc the British Library's table of contents. A list of other univeristy catalogues is available on the Electronic resources page of the Newman library website.
Statistics underpin many academic debates about quality, standards, equal opportunities and the overall effectiveness of Government policy. You can use them in assignments or research to add weight to your arguments.
• Social Trends - Produced by the Office for National Statistics, annually. Provides a comprehensive guide to UK society, illustrating how our lives have changed over the years and also reflecting the realities of contemporary lifestyles.
• Annual Abstract of Statistics - Produced by the Office for National Statistics. An annual publication containing a comprehensive collection of statistics about the UK’s economy and society including population, national accounts and government finance, the labour market, health and social protection, education, crime, environment, transport and many other subjects.
UK Statistics Authority Oversees the Office for National Statistics (ONS). Provides links to government sites to find the statistics of your choice. Sections include Neighbourhood, Economy, Census and Population.
DCSF National Statistics Department for Children, Schools and Families Analytical Services produce a wide range of statistics covering education, training and life-long learning.
UNESCO Institute for Statistics Global and internationally comparable statistics on education, science, technology, culture and communication.
The Guardian Datastore Governments around the globe are opening up their data vaults – allowing you to check out the numbers for yourself. This is the Guardian’s gateway to that information. Search for government data here from countries, cities and states around the world.
Information gateways gather internet resources which are carefully selected, indexed and described by subject specialists. You may find the following gateway useful for the Early Childhood Education and Care subject area:
Intute: Early Childhood Education & Care - With millions of resources
available on the Internet, it is difficult to find
relevant and appropriate material even if you have
good search skills and use advanced search
engines. Issues of trust, quality and search skills
are very real and significant concerns - particularly
in a learning context.
The Intute database makes it possible to discover
the best and most relevant resources in one easily
accessible place. You can explore
and discover trusted information.
The database is split into broad subject areas;
the most relevant for
Early
Childhood Education and Care are the 'Education and Research Methods' and ‘Social Sciences’ sections.
Please note that from July 2011, Intute will no longer be updated.
Deniz Bilgen, May 2012.