| Library Guide - psychology |
Welcome
I’m your Liaison Librarian for Psychology, David Crozier. 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 follows:
Email: d.crozier@newman.ac.uk
Tel: 0121 476 1181 ext. 1339
This subject guide is intended to help you find relevant information and resources to support you during your course of Psychology. 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 the 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!
Library Catalogue
The Library Catalogue is accessible at designated computers in the library or online via the library homepage.
You can use it to search for books, journal titles and many other materials that are held in the Library. There are five separate online catalogues available:
Main - The main catalogue includes everything held in the library. This is suitable for most purposes.
General - This catalogue contains general academic and theoretical texts, reference materials, some audio-visual materials, and the local history collection.
School Experience Collection - Search the school experience catalogue for teaching materials such as lesson plans, topic books, kits and artefacts.
Off-air Recordings – This collection of videos and DVDs is not kept in the library itself but in the Reprographics Department. However, you can still search it from the library catalogue.
Journals – Search this catalogue for the journal titles available in the library. For references to specific articles you should use the electronic bibliographic databases and online journals.
If you have the details of the item you are looking for you can search the catalogue by keyword, title, author or year. The keyword option is especially useful for searching for a given subject. There is an online help guide to using the catalogue available (use the Help option in the library catalogue), but if you need any further help please ask a member of library staff.
An online Reading List facility is available via the library catalogue. Using this option you can link directly through to items on the reading list without having to type in each author and title on the list.
The library catalogue will only search for materials held at Newman, however on the Electronic Resources library webpage, we have set up links to the library catalogues of various local and national institutions, e.g. Birmingham University. You can also arrange to have free reference access, or for some students borrowing rights, at other institutions through the SCONUL scheme. Please ask a member of library staff for information on how to join the scheme if you are interested.
Quick reference sources
These ‘quick reference’ sources are useful for finding factual information, answering specific questions on your subject and for finding answers quickly. The types of sources you can expect to find in the reference collection are encyclopaedias, dictionaries, handbooks, directories and yearbooks.
Use quick reference sources to find explanations and definitions of particular terms or topics, to find contact addresses or information on people or organisations or as a starting point for finding out further information central to your subject area. Generally, encyclopaedias are useful as a basic way of introducing yourself to a new subject, but the level and detail of information differs from one source to the next. It is also worth noting how up-to-date the information is that you are using. You may find some electronic sources are more up-to-date.
The sources selected for this guide will help you get to grips with some of the terminology you will encounter while studying psychology.
The Penguin
dictionary of psychology. (1985) Harmondsworth: Penguin.
The Concise dictionary of psychology. (1990) London: Routledge.
Dictionary of developmental and educational psychology. (1986) Oxford: Blackwell Reference.
A student's dictionary of psychology.(1993) London: Edward Arnold.
You can access an electronic reference resource called Credo, through the Electronic Resources library webpage. This digital reference library contains over 100 general and specialist reference titles and has useful features such as concept mapping to help you plan information searches.
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 psychology:
| Research Methods | 001.42 |
| Psychology | 150 |
| Cognitive Psychology | 153 |
| Developmental Psychology | 155 |
| Psychology of personality | 155.2 |
| Determinants (Biological Psychology) | 155.234 |
| Child Psychology | 155.4 |
| Social Development | 155.418 |
| Applied Psychology | 158 |
| Interpersonal relations | 158.2 |
| Psychology of family life | 158.24 |
| Psychology of work | 158.7 |
| Sociology | 301 |
| Social Psychology | 302 |
| Sociolinguistics | 306.44 |
| Psycholinguistics | 401.9 |
| Educational Psychology | 370.15 |
| Abnormal Psychology | 616.89 |
| Psychology of Sport | 796.01 |
If you have any trouble finding what you’re looking for, check the catalogue or ask a member of staff.
E-books
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
Journals are an excellent source of information. They show evidence of wider reading, are important for research and help you 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. The journal collection is for reference only, so titles should always be accessible. They are shelved alphabetically by title in the Journal section.
Many journal titles are available electronically via the online databases and e-journal subscription services, on the Electronic Resources library web page. On or off-campus you will need your Athens password to gain access to most of the database and e-journal collections.
We also may be able to provide an article from a journal that we don’t have in the library or fully subscribe to, via our inter-library loans service. Please ask at the Enquiry desk for details.
Here are just a few journal titles that will be useful in your studies:
British journal of developmental psychology*
British journal of psychology*
British journal of social psychology*
Child and adolescent mental health*
Child development*
Cognitive psychology
Community work and family*
Counselling and psychotherapy research journal*
European journal of social psychology
Journal of child psychology and psychiatry and allied disciplines*
Journal of community and applied social psychology
Journal of occupational and organizational psychology*
Journal of social psychology
Legal and criminological psychology*
Monographs of the society for research in child development
People management*
Psychologist
Quarterly journal of experimental psychology
Social psychology quarterly*
Therapy today
* = Journals available electronically
Newspapers are also a good source of current information. The library holds printed copies of the Guardian, The Times, the Times Educational Supplement and the Times Higher Educational Supplement. Many newspapers are now also available via the web, and have searchable archives.
These are tools which can help "unlock" the information held in journals, conference papers, etc, making it possible to search for published articles relevant to a specific subject or topic.
Index sources provide up-to-date bibliographic details (also called references) for journal articles on a particular subject or by a particular author. Abstract sources provide the same sort of details but in addition to the reference to a journal article, they will also provide an abstract (or summary) of the contents of the article, to help you decide how relevant it will be.
Newman library abstract and index services are available online for you to use at all times via the library website. Use the Electronic Resources page, then select Databases. The main services relevant to psychology are:
PsycINFO
This database is produced by the American Psychological Association, it contains
citations and summaries of journal articles, book chapters, books and technical
reports as well as citations to dissertations, all in the field of psychology
and psychological aspects of related disciplines. Over 55,000 references
are added annually through regular updates.
PsycARTICLES
Abstract, bibliographic details and full text electronic access are available
through this service.
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.
There are a large number of quality-assessed resources available through the library homepage. You can use the following links:
Useful Websites then choose the Psychology subject area to get a list of links to relevant websites. This is a ‘must-see’ facility with a range of interesting and useful sites. New sites are added on a regular basis. There is also a wealth of teaching materials available through various sites. The Useful Websites section is divided into the following groups:
Gateways and Indexes including links to, PsychNet-UK and INTUTE: Social Sciences
Organisations linking to The British Psychological Society and the Institute for PsychoHistory
Publications links to indexes, journals and table of contents service
Resources such as social science update and The world lecture hall for psychology.
Electronic Resources gives access to main Information Gateways and hubs such as INTUTE: Social Sciences (formerly SOSIG), the social sciences information gateway. The advantage of gateways over more general search engines like Google, is that they have pre-assessed the sites for quality and relevance to the subject field and are often aimed at the higher education field. Therefore search results are more focused, less likely to obtain irrelevant results and have already made it through some level of quality checking.
David Crozier August 2010