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PSYC 904: First-Year Graduate Seminar (UNH Durham)

Tutorials on Finding Full Text

Tutorials on How to Interlibrary Loan

Document Delivery

Request PDF copies of articles and book chapters that the UNH Library owns in print or on microform. Requested documents will generally be available within two business days.

Keeping Current

Many article-focused databases allow you to save searches, which you can rerun at a later time to update your original search

These databases also often allow you to send alerts yourself about new records that have been added to the database that satisfy the search(es) you have saved. This is an efficient way to find out what new articles or other materials are newly available that may be of interest to you. You can remove alerts or saved searches when you no longer need them.

Saving searches and setting alerts usually requires creating an account for yourself on the database's platform, for example, EBSCOhost or ProQuest.

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Another way to keep current is to have tables of contents (TOC) alerts for journals that are highly relevant to your topic or general disciplinary interests automatically sent to you as the TOCs are published. This can be done through the publishers' websites for the journals you're interested in or through Current Contents Connect, which is one component of the Web of Science product.

Tips from Your Librarian

  • I strongly recommend searching more than one database, especially if you are trying to be somewhat comprehensive. Different results rise to the top based on each database's content and coverage as well as how that particular search interface's algorithm works.
  • The mix of databases to search should include at least one specialized database: for psychology, PsycINFO is the one I'd recommend, and at least one multidisciplinary database, for example, Google Scholar, the library search box, or Web of Science. Depending on your topic, other specialized databases may also be useful.
  • A specialized database such as PsycINFO more easily gets you into the literature of your field, helps with learning the terminology/jargon (subject terms or descriptors) used in the field, and offers useful filters that aren't available in more general databases. Very helpful filters in the Advanced Search in PsycINFO (through EBSCOhost) include Age Groups, Population Group, and Methodology.
  • If you use JSTOR, please be aware that the full text for the most recent 2-5 years for many journals is usually not included.

Databases to Consider

Depending on your specific topic, one of these specialized databases may be helpful. For more online resources, check out the complete Database List.

Additional Search Options

The UNH Library search box provides one-stop searching for books and e-books; articles in newspapers, journals, and magazines; and video and audio

This can be useful if you want

  • multidisciplinary coverage specifically
  • initial exploration
  • additional resources by being comprehensive for articles outside of your primary discipline

You can limit results to peer reviewed journals and by publication date, An advanced search with additional options is available:

Keyword searching across citations, abstracts and full text of articles (even if the full text isn't available to you).

Advantages:

  • identify relevant articles, especially if your search is pretty specific.
  • useful for exploratory purposes or when you're "covering all the bases"

Disadvantages:

  • hard to organize or sort in useful ways
  • unable to search by subject or limit by anything other than time

Enhance efficiency by adjusting these Google Scholar settings so that

  • Library Links shows library access links to UNH (so you have quicker access to full text that UNH is subscribing to)

Connect to

Conference Proceedings

Conference papers may discuss leading-edge research or new concepts or technologies still being developed.

Some databases such as PsycINFO, ERIC, and Sociological Abstracts include records for papers presented at conferences and/or for conference proceedings. There's usually an option to filter or limit search results to this type of document. Often only the abstract is published or available. Conference papers sometimes become the basis for articles published in journals. More recently, some conference papers may be deposited in the author's institutional repository. At times, contacting one of the presenters may be the only way to get the complete paper presented.

Two data bases that focus on conference proceedings include