Most popular journal articles...

...on ScienceDirect can be viewed using their "Top 25 Hottest Articles" charts. Released quarterly, they can be viewed by subject (e.g. psychology) or journal title (e.g. journal of personality and social psychology). It's a great way of keeping up with the latest exciting research, as well as a rather interesting way of identifying potential topics for your own research.

Refining your search results on EBSCO PsycINFO...

…lets you find more relevant articles, and the good news is that EBSCO has various options to help you refine your results. Among the most useful are the ‘age’ and ‘gender’ options which enable you to find articles relating to a particular population group. These two options were discussed in more detail in the blog posting of 10th November 2010.

Other helpful options under the ‘Refine your results’ list - found on the left-hand side of the results screen – include:

• Linked Full Text – this reduces your results list to only those which have full-text available on PsycINFO. I would not recommend using this option, as PsycINFO is primarily an index of article references and contains very little full-text, so you will be losing the reference details of many very good articles. A lot of these articles will be accessible to you in full-text from UEL’s large number of full-text journal subscriptions - searchable via ‘Find an e-journal’.
• References Available – this will only find articles with reference lists available to view. Reference lists can be useful in finding further reading because they tell you what the article’s author(s) read when they wrote the article.
• Peer Reviewed – this only returns results from peer-reviewed journals. Peer-reviewed journals are the highest quality, most reliable journals as all articles are reviewed by independent experts before being published.
• Publication Date - helpful if you only want the most recent articles, or articles from a certain period e.g. ones published during the 1980s.

Further down, there are options to view the most frequently occurring publications, authors and subjects. Clicking on a name or topic from any of these lists will then focus your search more narrowly on results from that publication or author, or about that subject.

Free psychology research papers...

...can be found on Cogprints. All papers are self-archived e-prints direct from the authors. It is a trusted source of research articles, but nonetheless don't forget to individually evaluate each paper before deciding whether to use it!

New psychology books in Stratford library...

...added to stock during November 2011 can be viewed from this link: November 2011 new books list. Please note that it only lists items purchased for the School of Psychology.

There are quite a lot of e-books this month, with a mixture of e-versions of new books and e-versions of existing books. Brand new e-books include, "Appreciative inquiry handbook (2nd edn.)" by David Cooperrider and "Introduction to research methods in psychology (3rd edn.)" by Dennis Howitt.

A large range of topics are covered by the new books this month, with titles including the 6th edition of Robert Sternberg's "Cognition", William West's "Exploring therapy, spirituality and healing" and Raymond Noe's "Employee training and development (5th edn.)".

All books, including e-books, can be found using the library catalogue.

Leave your feedback about the library...

...using the 'Your Feedback' form on the library website. Use it for praise, complaints or general comments related to library services or resources. It all helps us improve the service we provide!

Free-to-view European theses...

...are available from the DART-Europe E-theses Portal. To restrict by language, go to Advanced Search and choose a language (e.g. English). A general search for 'psychology' in English finds 494 e-theses.

A new psychoanalysis collection...

...called PEP-WEB (PEP Archive 1 Version 10 (1871-2007) release) is now available from the library's 'Databases & e-journals' webpage. It contains the complete text and illustrations of 42 premier journals in psychoanalysis, 58 classic psychoanalytic books, and the full text and editorial notes of the 24 volumes of the Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud.

New psychology books in Stratford Library...

...added to stock during October 2011 can be viewed from this link: October 2011 new books list. Please note that it only lists items purchased for the School of Psychology.

There's quite a variety of new books this month, plus additional copies of some popular texts. Brand new titles include Lloyd Chapman's "Integrated experiential coaching", Robert Ewen's "An introduction to theories of personality (7th edition)" and the brand new 7th edition of "Wrightsman's psychology and the legal system".

We have lots of new e-books this month, including several by staff from the School of Psychology, such as Christine Dancey's "Statistics without maths for psychology (5th edition)",  "Positive psychology" by Kate Hefferon and Ilona Boniwell and "Qualitative research methods in mental health and psychotherapy" by Dave Harper. A full list of all titles can be seen from the link above.

All books, including e-books, can be found using the library catalogue.

Dissertation Abstracts International...

…is a publication you may come across through certain databases (e.g. EBSCO PsycINFO) or search engines like Google. It is an index of dissertations and theses published in North America (i.e. the USA and Canada). We do not have access to DAI at UEL, as it is extremely difficult to obtain the full-text of the theses found on it. If you do wish to get hold of something you find on DAI, then our main suggestion is to track down the author and / or their university department to see if they are able to provide you with a copy. British dissertations and theses are much easier to obtain – simply access the free-to-use EThOS website.

Visual search on EBSCO databases…

…may prove to be a very helpful tool if you are a visual learner. The option can be found beneath the main search box in any EBSCO database (such as PsycINFO). To make the most of it, I would suggest starting with a very simple search (e.g. interpersonal relationships) and following the screens from there. The way it works, is that it picks up the most common terms related to your search and presents them in a visual list. You click on one of these (e.g. ‘attachment behavior’) and it then presents you with another list, this time of the most common terms within the results for that phrase. You can keep clicking on these terms until you hone it down to exactly what you are looking for. At each stage the trail you have following is displayed visually, so you can backtrack and take alternative routes. If that all sounds a bit complex, then please give it a go – it is much easier to use than it is to explain!!!

Psychological image collection...

…is a free set of images made available by University of Stirling for use in psychology research projects. It is available at the following web address: http://pics.stir.ac.uk/.

New psychology books in Stratford library...

...added to stock during September 2011 can be viewed from this link: September 2011 new books list. Please note that it only lists items purchased for the School of Psychology.

We have quite a few new books in stock this month, including various positive psychology titles, such as Fredrickson's "Positivity", Snyder's "Positive psychology (2nd edition)" and Carr's "Positive psychology (2nd edition)". Other brand new titles include, "Psychology for medicine" by Susan Ayers, "Coaching and mentoring at work" by Mary Connor and the 3rd edition of Walliman's "Your research project". New e-books include "A guide to task analysis" and Seligman's "Authentic happiness". A full list of all titles can be seen from the link above.

All books, including e-books, can be found using the library catalogue.

The Info Skills website...

...is the library's assignment support tool, designed to guide you through the basics of identifying, finding, evaluating and referencing information. Having launched it earlier this year, we are now keen to hear your views. So please let us know what you think about Info Skills by completing the evaluation form.

Friends of the Library...

...is a new group open to all UEL students. If you want a say in improving the library and helping test new products and services, then go to the Friends of the Library page on the website to sign up!

Psychology dictionaries and thesauri...

…are excellent places to look for definitions of unfamiliar terminology. However, have you also considered their use in finding background information, and associated terms and topics, for key concepts? Take the ‘Encyclopaedic dictionary of psychology’, for example, which we have available as a reference book in Stratford Library and online as an e-book, via the library catalogue. The field of ‘cognitive psychology’ has its own section, with a definition of the field and of all the main terms associated with it. One such term is ‘amnesia’, which it defines, links to other psychological concepts and then explains the main issues which surround it (e.g. “One often overlooked problem is that memory impairment can result in marked emotional difficulties and severe disruption of everyday life” (page 125)).

The library at UEL has many psychology dictionaries and thesauri, including some new ones purchased during Summer 2011. These new additions to stock include: ‘Cambridge dictionary of psychology’, ‘Corsini encyclopedia of psychology (4^th edition)’, ‘Encyclopedia of positive psychology’, ‘Encyclopedia of educational psychology’ and the aforementioned ‘Encyclopaedic dictionary of psychology’. There are also many longstanding titles such as, ‘Penguin dictionary of psychology’, ‘Student’s dictionary of psychology’, ‘Biographical dictionary of psychology’ and Kazdin’s ‘Encyclopedia of psychology’, to name but a few. A growing number are available as e-books through the library catalogue.

New psychology books in Stratford library...

...added to stock during August 2011 can be viewed from this link: August 2011 new books list. Please note that it only lists items purchased for the School of Psychology.

 We have brand new editions of several major textbooks this month. These include the 5th edition of Christine Dancey's "Statistics without maths for psychology", the 3rd edition of Frederick Toates' "Biological psychology" and the 3rd edition of Bartol's "Introduction to forensic psychology". We also have a few new reference titles, including "Corsini's encyclopedia of psychology (4th edition)" and "The encyclopaedic dictionary of psychology". Other new titles include Morris Eagle's "From classical to contemporary psychoanalysis" and Donaldson's "Applied positive psychology". We also have quite a few new e-books. Check out the link above to see a full list of all titles.

 All books, including e-books, can be found using the library catalogue.

Language options...

…are now available on all EBSCO databases, including PsycINFO. Simply select the ‘Languages’ menu from the top right of the screen and choose your language. Everything within EBSCO (except, unfortunately, the article records themselves) will then be translated, making searching much easier, if English is not your first language.

New books in the library...

...added to stock during the month of July 2011 can be viewed from this link: July 2011 new books list. Please note that it only lists items purchased for the School of Psychology.

Quite a few new books this month, with the usual mixture of brand new titles, new editions and additional copies of popular titles. We also have quite a few new e-books. Check out the link above to see a full list of all titles.

All books, including e-books, can be found using the library catalogue.

Psychology in the news: The internet is affecting our memories...

...as people increasingly rely upon web-based information rather than retaining it in their own memories. This is according to some insightful new research, recently published in 'Science' journal. The full news story can be found on the following page on the BBC News website: Internet's memory effects quantified in computer study.

Psychology Today...

...is a magazine of popular psychology, with an excellent website. Its webpages give you access to lots of full-length stories and snippets of psychology-related news. If you're keen to broaden your horizons in psychology and discover new and interesting angles, then you could do a lot worse than this website: http://www.psychologytoday.com/. By means of a tip, why not check out the 'Topic Streams' on the left-hand side of the homepage?

New books in the library...

...added to stock during the month of June 2011 can be viewed from this link: June 2011 new books list. Please note that it only lists items purchased for stock from the library's 'psychology' book funds.

New books in June included David Brooks' "The social animal", Rachel Taylor's "Deception: a young person's life skill?" and Kenneth Robert's "Class in contemporary Britain (2nd edition)", which is a follow-up to his 2001 work, "Class in modern Britain". There are also the usual mixture of new editions and new e-books. Follow the link above for the full list.

All titles, including e-books, can be found through the library catalogue.

Monitor on Psychology...

...is a wonderful online journal published by the APA (American Psychological Association). It covers a fascinating range of topics across the various fields of psychology and is well worth a read. It is published monthly, with all issues dating back to January 2000 (volume 31, issue 1) available to view for free online.

Library opening hours...

...for the summer vacation period can be found here: library opening hours. We will return to our normal 24/7 opening hours in mid-September.

New books in the library...

...added to stock during the month of May 2011 can be viewed from this link: May 2011 new books list. Please note that it only lists items purchased for stock from the library's 'psychology' book funds.

Alongside extra copies of some popular books, this month also includes some exciting new additions to stock. Richard Gerrig's "Psychology and life (19th edition)" is brand new - we don't hold any previous editions of this title. Also new are all four volumes of Lisa Dorn's "Driver behaviour and training" and Michael Peter's "Critical theory and the human condition".

We have some major new e-books added this month, including Martin, Buskist and Carlson's "Psychology (4th edition)" and Carla Willig's "Introducing qualitative research in psychology (2nd edition)".

All titles, including e-books, can be found through the library catalogue.

Information for Library users with disabilities and dyslexia...

...can be found on the library website: Users with disabilities web page. It includes a number of useful links, including key contacts for each library and information on the specialist equipment we have in our Assistive Technology rooms.

Psychology in the news...

…can be a great way of seeing how the wider world (well, the media, at least) perceive and report both psychology and the psychology profession. Generally, if the stories make it into the news then they are likely to be either ‘fun’ stories or fascinating new discoveries. Either way, news stories can be a way of finding out new things either in your own field of interest or in areas of psychology that you may never have considered. Relatively frequent examples of psychology (or psychologists) appearing in new stories range from educational psychologists being interviewed about ‘behaviour in schools’ to personal tales of amnesia or other such memory dysfunction.

Finding mainstream news articles can be done in two main ways. The first way is through the library’s subscription to a database called Nexis UK, which provides access to several decades worth of articles from all of the UK’s national newspapers (both broadsheet and tabloid), many regional UK newspapers and a range of international newspapers (including ones in foreign languages). You can normally find today’s issue, as well as ones from several decades ago, so it is a fantastic resource! It can be accessed through the library's Databases and e-Journals webpage (click on 'N' for Nexis UK).

Aside from newspapers, the other main way to find news stories these days is on the Internet. More ‘traditional’ sources such as BBC News and Reuters are very effective, although broader (but less reliable) searches can also be done through news search engines such as Google News and Yahoo News Search.

New books in the library...

...added to stock during the month of April 2011 can be viewed from this link: April 2011 new books list. Please note that it only lists items purchased for stock from the library's 'psychology' book funds.

As we are coming to the end of the academic year, the book budget is nearly spent up so there aren't too many new books to report this month. Nonetheless, new titles include Mary McMahon's 'Career counseling and constructivism' and Starcevic's 'Anxiety disorders in adults (2nd edition)'. We also have additional copies of several books, including Gazzaniga's 'Cognitive neuroscience: biology of the mind (3rd edition)'.
All books can be found using the library catalogue.

The new Stratford Library...

...is currently in the latter stages of planning. To keep you informed of developments, we have set up a 'New Stratford Library' webpage. Why not bookmark it and stay up-to-date?

Quick, plain English help on using library materials for assignments…

…is now available through UEL Library’s brand new Info Skills tool. The culmination of several months work in collaboration with UELConnect, Info Skills has been designed as a quick access guide to the basics of finding and using information sources for university assignments. Broken down into the four key information skills (identifying, finding, evaluating and referencing information) guidance is provided in bite-size chunks through a variety of means, from bullet-pointed notes to downloadable PDF guides, visual demonstrations, video testimonials and interactive quizzes. Add to this a set of FAQs (e.g. ‘What is an Athens account?’), a glossary of ‘library’ terms and a link through to our Ask-a-Librarian chat service, and we hope to have provided new and current students with an invaluable online tool to dip into as and when needed.

Why not check it now at: http://www.uel.ac.uk/infoskills. If you are a student then please tell your friends about it. If you are an academic then please promote it to your students. And if you are unaffiliated with UEL, then don’t be afraid to try it out. It has been made available as a free tool for use by anyone no matter where they may live, work or study!

New books in the library...

...added to stock during the month of March 2011 can be viewed from this link: March 2011 new books list. Please note that it only lists items purchased for stock from the library's 'psychology' book funds.

We have several new editions this month, including two popular research books: Loraine Blaxter's "How to research (4th edition)" and Judith Bell's "Doing your research project (5th edition)". There are also quite a few brand new titles including various books on the psychology of crime and terrorism. New e-books this month include "Dictionary of forensic psychology" by Graham Towl.
All books can be found using the library catalogue.

Unreliable websites...

...are everywhere on the Internet. If you're planning on using information you've found online in one of your assignments then you need to be very careful. Often the best thing to do is to only use information from academic (.ac.uk) or government (.gov.uk) sites as they are likely to be more reliable. Of course, this isn't always possible and there are lots of other factors to consider, too (e.g. is the website up-to-date?). So what do you do?
I would suggest the first thing to do is get clued up about evaluating websites. There is advice about this in the Evaluating Information section of UEL's Info Skills site. I would also recommend exploring an excellent online tutorial called the Internet Detective. If you're still not sure whether or not a website is reliable, then don't use the information in your assignment. It's as simple as that!

If you've forgotten your Athens password...

...then there's now a quick and easy way to reset it. The instructions have just been added to the Library's Athens webpage. Lots more helpful advice is also available on the page.

Journals coverage on PsycINFO...

...now extends to over 2,480 titles, covering all fields of psychology and counselling, as well as the related areas of coaching and guidance. The APA website provides a full list of all journal titles indexed by PsycINFO. The list is regularly updated, but if you want to keep really up-to-date, then they also provide a list of recently added titles which don't yet appear on the complete list. PsycINFO is, of course, primarily an index of journal articles (you can use Find an e-Journal to see if we have full-text at UEL). However, there is also a list of full-text titles available from PsycARTICLES, with all of these full-text journals being automatically included in PsycINFO (so there is no need to search both databases!).

New books in the library...

...added to stock during the month of February 2011 can be viewed from this link: February 2011 new books list. Please note that it only lists items purchased for stock from the library's 'psychology' book funds.

Lots of new editions this month, including two popular statistics books: Dennis Howitt's "Introduction to statistics in psychology (5th edition)" and Neil Salkind's "Statistics for people who (think they) hate statistics (4th edition)". We also have new editions of other popular titles, including the twelfth edition of Julien's "Primer of drug action", the fifth edition of Arnold's "Work psychology" and the third edition of Marks' "Health psychology". Brand new titles added to stock include a new career guidance book by Anthony Barnes called "An introduction to career learning and development, 11-19", plus Luttrell's "Qualitative educational psychology".
All books can be found using the library catalogue.

There's more to the library catalogue...

…than just being able to search for books and journals. For example, did you know that you can save your search queries for future reference and set up alerts to be notified when new books are added to stock? No? It’s easy enough to set up. Simply sign-in to the catalogue, run your search as normal and then click on the ‘Save query’ link which appears to the left of the results (just below the search box, in fact). There is then an option to save the query or set up an alert. You can manage your saved queries and alerts by clicking on ‘My Account’ in the top right of the screen.

Ever wondered what the ‘e-Shelf’ link in the top right of the catalogue screen is used for? The e-Shelf is where you can save lists of useful books and journals and then organise them into folders. For example, you might wish to add a list of reading for your module so that you can easily refer back to it and see which books are currently available. To add items to your e-Shelf, make sure you are signed in to the catalogue and then click the little white star which appears next to each result in the results list. The star turns yellow, indicating it has been added. If you click on the e-Shelf link in the top right of the page you can then view and organise all items you have added.

Free online research collections...

…are now available through JISC Content.JISC are an official UK universities organisation and they have sourced content from a large number of highly reputable bodies, including the British Library and The National Archives. It is well worth exploring the site.

On the topic of free content, many top American universities are now offering free online courses. These include a growing number of free psychology lectures. Yale University, for example, offer an entire series of 18 hour-long lectures on ‘An Introduction to Psychology’ free of charge on YouTube.

More journal articles and research papers...

…can be found by making use of Web of Science. While we may recommend EBSCO PsycINFO and ScienceDirect as the main databases for most courses in the School of Psychology, Web of Science is an excellent source of further research. It is what is known as a ‘citation database’, which means that it indexes a large number of journals (over 10,000 different publications) and conference papers (currently over 120,000) but without the full-text you may find in some other databases. You can search for the full-text within UEL’s collections by clicking on the ‘SFX’ link which appears below each article.

To access Web of Science, choose ‘Web of Knowledge’ from the A-Z list on the Library’s e-journals and databases webpage. Once you are in, click through until you reach the Web of Science search screen. The best way to find things is to start with a fairly simple search term. From the results page you will then see lots of different options on the left-hand side to refine your results. There is also the option to export citations to Endnote.

New books in the library...

...added to stock during the month of January 2011 can be viewed from this link: January 2011 new books list. Please note that it only lists items purchased for stock from the library's 'psychology' book funds.

 A quiet month, but there have been a few new additions to stock plus a few books where extra copies have been purchased. Brand new titles include Howitt's "Introduction to qualitative methods in psychology" and Bjorklund's "Journey of adulthood (7th edition)". New e-books include Worden's "Grief counseling and grief therapy (4th edition)" and the 3rd edition of Leonard's "Fundamentals of psychopharmacology".

 All books, including e-books, can be found using the library catalogue.

Don't forget: the European Computer Driving Licence...

...better known as the ECDL, is available to all psychology students through the library. It is a widely recognised basic computing qualification which looks great on CVs when applying for jobs! Even if you are already pretty good with computers, it's important to be able to demonstrate your proficiency and that's exactly what possessing an ECDL certificate can help do. More information, including details on how to sign up, are available on the ECDL web page.

Improvements to Ask-a-Librarian...

...are now live. The first is an extension to the hours for the live webchat service. It is now available from 1-7pm on weekdays and 1-5pm at weekends. Outside these hours you can leave a message and a librarian will get back to you within 48 hours.

The second improvement is that we have added a facility to search our library knowledge base. Simply enter a search term, e.g 'athens', and you will see answers given to previous similar questions.

New books in the library...

...added to stock during the month of December 2010 can be viewed from this link: December 2010 new books list. Please note that it only lists items purchased for stock from the library's 'psychology' book funds.

A few brand new titles added to stock during December. These include "Gender: psychological perspectives (6th ed.)" by Brannon, "The Autism Matrix" by Eyal and "Career management (4th ed.)" by Greenhaus. We also have new editions of some popular titles, including the 6th edition of Richard Gross' "Psychology: science of mind and behaviour", the 8th edition of Engler's "Personality theories" and the 10th edition of "Methods in behavioral research" by Cozby. There are additional copies of some high demand titles, including "The ghost map" and some new e-books, such as Rowan Bayne's "Applied psychology".

All new titles, including any e-books, can be found using the library catalogue.